Anne is a Man podcast feeds for September 2009

It is still a bit of an experiment, but I am still working on this issue: devising podcast feeds for my readers. Especially since I discovered Huffduffer, which I'd advice anyone to use, it has become very easy to create podcast feeds from assorted audio files offered on the internet.

I started out using Google Reader and here I still maintain the Iran Feed and one can also still subscribe to the legacy interviews of Martin Simek at RVU.

The new feeds are at Huffduffer | AnneisaMan. This is getting to be so big, I have to find a way of making it accessible. In any case, every tag has its own feed and so the options to subscribe for the readers are extensive. I want to point out though, that most of the tags correspond with the labels on my blog. And so if you want you can subscribe to the following label related feeds:
English - English podcasts reviewed in Anne is a Man
Nederlands - Dutch podcasts and other audio, most of which is reviewed
Deutsch - German podcasts
Hebrew - Hebrew podcasts
History - Podcasts on history in all languages
Geopolitics - Podcasts about international relations and power balance
NL Radio - Dutch radio programs in podcast.
Environment - Podcasts about environmental issues.
Philosophy - Podcasts touching on philosophical issues.
Economics - Economics podcasts
Israel - Podcasts about the problems in the Middle East and their history.
Law and Society - Subjects of social order, legal rights and government policy.
Psychology - Podcasts on psychology, psychiatry and other social sciences.
Science - Podcasts in technology and natural sciences
Culture - Podcasts with an artistic and cultural aspect.

New podcasts in September 2009 - Anne is a Man

September is the month when university courses begin. I have reviewed a number of new ones, especially from Berkeley. In addition to those there were a couple of more new podcasts I reviewed for the first time.

Academic Courses:
American Studies 101 AC (Berkeley) (review, site, feed)
Examining U.S. Cultures in Time.

East Asian Languages and Cultures (Berkeley) (review, site, feed)
Dynamics of Romantic Core Values in East Asian Premodern Literature.

Environmental Economics and Policy (Berkeley) (review, site, feed)
Introduction to Environmental Economics and Policy.

History 162A (Berkeley) (review, site, feed)
A very instructive course into the geopolitics of Europe from the late seventeenth to the early twentieth century.

Philosophy 135 (Berkeley) (review, site, feed)
Theory of meaning.

Philosophy 138 (Berkeley) (review, site, feed)
Philosophy of Society.

Introductory Topics in Religious Studies (Berkeley) (review, site, feed)
Introduction into religion with emphasis on historical, theological and anthropological notions.

Foundations of American Cyber-Culture (Berkeley) (review, site, feed)
Insight in the current life in cyberspace.

Introduction to Psychology (Yale) (review, site, feed)
Excellent introduction by Paul Bloom.

Conceptual Foundations of International Politics (Columbia) (review, site, feed)
A 2007 lecture series on geopolitics.

Other podcasts I reviewed for the first time:
Dogear Nation (review, site, feed)
Technology podcast which chooses its subjects from the bookmarking site Delicious

Long Now podcast (review, site, feed)
Lectures held at The Long Now, an institute which takes a long term vision.

Omega Tau Podcast (review, site, feed)
Bilingual science and technology podcast; interviews with experts. (feed in English, feed in German)

Dutch podcasts (huffduffed):
Marathon Arie Kleywegt (review, site, feed)
Marathon Interview uit 1993.

Marathon Herman Bianchi (review, site, feed)
Marathon Interview uit 1992.

Hoorspelen (review, site, feed)
Mijn Huffduffer feed met Nederlandstalige hoorspelen.

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Paniekvirus - Argos Podcast

Onderzoeksjournalistiek in podcast is te verkrijgen via de VPRO in het programma Argos (feed). Het laatste programma in die serie gaat over Ab Osterhaus, die we recentelijk al eerder in twee andere podcasts gehoord hebben en besproken hebben.

De kwestie kwam daar ook al voorzichtig aan de orde: Osterhaus is een uitgesproken stem in de media voor grootschalig preventieve investeringen in verband met de Mexicaanse Griep. De Nederlandse overheid, die zich laat adviseren door Osterhaus, besloot 34 miljoen vaccins te bestellen, terwijl bijvoorbeeld de Belgische een order voor maar een fractie daarvan plaatste. Osterhaus zou belangen hebben in de pharmceutische industrie en indirect aan de hype verdienen. Nu het virus blijkt mee te vallen, is Osterhaus de gebeten hond en worden zijn belangen in de media breed uitgemeten en worden er zelfs al kamervragen gesteld.

Natuurlijk moet de relatieve partijdigheid van de professor aangetoond worden en doet Argos in dit verband goed werk, maar het stoort me dat de belangen van Osterhaus als eerste aan de orde komen. Niet dat lijkt mij de centrale vraag; of de adviseur van de regering ergens aandelen heeft en of de belangrijkste expert die de media informeert belangen heeft. Veel belangrijker is dat de pers naast die ene specialist ook nog anderen aan het woord laat. En nog belangrijker dat de overheid zich niet afhankelijk maakt van een enkele adviseur, met alle feilen die er aan elke persoon kleven, of het nu om financiele belangen gaat of andere beperkingen. Nu blijkt dat we onnodig in paniek zijn geraakt, is de volgende hype, kennelijk, om van Osterhaus een zondebok te maken. Terwijl het hype fenomeen veeleer bepaald wordt, niet door Osterhaus, maar door de media en de overheid die zich in een zaak als deze onvoldoende indekken tegen een assymetrische mate van geinformeerd zijn. Als je veel meer dan een enkele expert raadpleegt, zijn al die belangenverstrengelingen al veel minder schadelijk.

Meer Argos:
VPRO's Argos - Podcast recensie.

Meer Ab Osterhaus:
KRO's voor 1 nacht,
Elsevier's Simek 's Nachts.

Whalen / Rohrbough - NBIH

Somehow I have managed to keep up with the production schedule of New Books in History and in the same week listen to both a new and an old issue from this eminent podcast series.

The latest episode, an interview with Brett Whalen, takes us much further back than what we usually get in NBIH: to the age of the Crusades. The need for Crusades was connected with the eschatology notion that the word of Christ needed to be known onto the whole world and that Jerusalem better be in the hands of the Christians. What was it that only by the tenth century these ideas became so convincing that they could trigger an age of Crusades? Whalen takes us into the logic of the Crusades and in the process also shows how this crusading idea never died. Gives new thoughts on George W. Bush's use of the word Crusade in the context of the War against Terror.

For the older episode I simply went to the beginning of the feed and took the oldest issue: an interview with Malcolm Rohrbough. With Rohrbough, Marshal Poe speaks about the trans-Appalachian frontier. Rohrbough is said to be the one who has written the 'definitive story' on this issue. This is basically the effort to take the history of the western frontier from its earliest point and try to tell it as one from the beginning.

More NBIH:
Confronting the bomb,
Henry Hudson's fatal journey,
Substance abuse in the midwest,
How could they continue - NBIH on WW1 soldiers,
After slavery was abolished.

Oude Hoorspelen - Huffduffer feed

Dankzij een artikel op het blog van Ronald van den Boogaard, kwam ik terecht op een webpagina van de radiomaker Gerrit Kalsbeek, waar hij door middel van playertjes een aantal oude hoorspelen beluisterbaar heeft neergezet. Het gaat om drama's die in de jaren vijftig en zestig werden geschreven en rond die tijd ook zijn uitgezonden.

Ik heb ze nog niet allemaal gehoord, maar die waar ik aan heb kunnen snuffelen zijn om uiteenlopende redenen zeer de moeite waard. Neem bijvoorbeeld De Korawa Expeditie. Dat is een hoorspel dat voelbaar oubollig is in zijn totaal verouderde weergave van de romance tussen de man en de vrouw in het verhaal en door de koude oorlog atmosfeer waarin het is neergezet. Maar die oubolligheid is nou juist ook de charme. Voeg daarbij een verrassend element. Zonder dat ik teveel wil weggeven over de plot, het gaat ten slotte om een thriller, is wel op te merken dat in het verhaal een motief van klimaatverandering gepaard gaand aan een stijgende waterspiegel meespeelt. Dat is toch iets voor een stuk dat in 1967 geschreven is, buitengewoon visionair.

Om kort te gaan, het is meer dan de moeite waard om hier eens naar te gaan luisteren, maar waarom on-line? Ik heb de herkomst van de geluidsbestanden uit de pagina achterhaald en ben begonnen ze in een Huffduffer feed te zetten. Onder AnneisaMan | Hoorspelen zal ik ze allemaal invoeren (feed). Eventueel andere hoorspelen die ik op het spoor zou komen (hulp is welkom) zal ik aan deze feed eveneens toevoegen.

Natural Resource Management - LSE podcast

At the LSE podcast there was a lecture as part of a conference at the newly established International Growth Center. This is an institute within the London School of Economics that concerns itself with the practical study of how underdeveloped countries can come to proper development. Especially important in that respect is Natural Resource Management

Professor Paul Collier speaks of natural resource management and eloquently builds the argument how this should go about. Many of the natural resources in underdeveloped countries are still not discovered. It is reasonable to assume they are there and in that rspect they form an excellent ticket out of poverty. But in order to prevent that other should profit and not the country and its population, these resources need to be carefully searched for, sold, exploited, taxed and the money properly invested.

Be aware that the first 16 minutes of the podcast are spent on welcoming and other ceremonial talk that pertain the conference rather than the specific talk. My advice is to skip them.

More LSE Events:
The Iran power struggle,
Justice,
In Search of Islam’s Civilization,
Religion and the Market - John Gray on LSE,
John Gray's cultural pessimism.

Omega Tau - bilingual science podcast

Here is a new and very interesting find in the realm of science podcasts: Omega Tau Podcast. There have been eighteen episodes to date and it looks very promising. On subjects of science and technology the podcast presents interviews with specialists in the chosen fields.

I very much enjoyed the last two episode. One about robotics and the last about Astrobiology. It is always good to hear the specialists talk, but let them be guided in an interview to make connection with the wider public and the listening easier. In addition, what is special about this podcast is that it is bilingual. Half of the episodes are in English, the other half in German. The production is in German hands, but depending upon the guest - apparently - the interview is conducted in English.

It is possible to subscribe to the entire podcast: Omega Tau podcast feed, but also to connect to feeds in either of the languages: Omega Tau in English and Omega Tau in German. Needless to say, when you subscribe to either of these, you get the episodes in that language only and the numbering will not be continuous.

Environmental history: an applied science - EEH

The Exploring Environmental History Podcast has delivered the fourth issue in the series of defining the field of environmental history. This time Jan Oosthoek did not interview a fellow historian, but rather read an essay on the subject. An interesting conclusion to the series, but be aware that listening to an essay is more demanding than listening to an interview.

More Exploring Environmental History:
Defining Environmental History with Marc Hall,
Defining Environmental History - Paul Warde,
Defining Environmental History - Donald Worster,
Natural Disasters,
Canada and New Zealand.

David Cole - NYRB

The podcast of the New York Review of Books (feed) is always worth to take a listen. I choose my subjects as I do with so many other interview and lecture podcasts. The latest issue was one I listened to with great interest.

Lawyer David Cole was interviewed on the subject of lawyers who authorize torture. About the subject he also wrote an article in the NYT called The Torture Memo. He refers to memo's that came from lawyers who informed the Bush administration how they could legally use enhanced interrogation techniques (a euphemism for torture) or alternately use them and avoid being called to defend the use in court. These memos have been secret until recently, but bit by bit are becoming public only now, thanks to legislation under the Obama administration.

The picture becomes clear of what Cole and his fellows long guessed was the case: torture was widely used and intentionally so. The legal foundation of it, he argues, has created a situation that torture is at the discretion of the president. If you have a president who wants to use torture, it shall be used and the cases shall be held out of court. The implicit argument is that this has no place in a state under the rule of law, according to Cole.

More NYRB podcast:
Amateur Science - Freeman Dyson,
Roger Cohen in Tehran,
Ronald Dworkin.

More David Cole:
Less safe, less free.

Rudyard Kipling - veertien achttien

Op de podcast Veertien Achttien (feed) zat ik deze week echt uit te kijken. Ik wist dat de nieuwe aflevering over een van mijn geliefde schrijvers zou gaan: Rudyard Kipling.

Ik wist helemaal niet dat Kipling een zoon in de oorlog verloren had. Het heeft hem zo aangegrepen dat hij er een prachtig gedicht over schreef: "If any question why we died/ Tell them, because our fathers lied." En rondom dat gedicht bouwt Tom Tacken deze biografie. De leugen van Kipling is wellicht dat hij zijn relaties gebruikt heeft om zoon John in het leger te krijgen. Daar was hij aanvankelijk voor afgekeurd.

John is ook een van die soldaten die nog heel lang vermist blijft, totdat de dood officieel wordt aangenomen. Het moet het leed van Kipling alleen maar verlengd hebben. Tacken heeft er deze week weer een prachtig verhaal van gesmeed. Het is of hij wat literaire inspiratie van meester Kipling heeft gekregen, want ik vond de uitwerking, die toch al elke week op uitzonderlijk peil staat, deze keer buitengewoon. Haast lyrisch. Met ironie, natuurlijk, dat wel.

Meer Veertien Achttien:
Ferdinand I van Bulgarije,
Veertien Achttien in transit,
Pegoud, Grimm - Veertien Achttien,
Emmeline Pankhurst,
Lord Kitchener.

A history of the Israeli-Arab conflict - Rear Vision

The program Rear Vision of Australia's ABC which is also available as podcast, had three guests to speak on The Middle East conflict and the two-state solution. Giora Eiland; former head of the Israeli National Security Council and General in the Israel General Staff. Jeremy Pressman; Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science, at the University of Connecticut in America. And Rashid Khalidi; Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University in America.

I especially liked the contribution of Rashid Khalidi, who we have recently heard also in several other excellent podcast appearances - see below. When discussing the Balfour Declaration Khalidi points out that although the provision was made that the Jews were to respect the rights of others, the Arabs are not mentioned here. This is to be a continuing problem in the history, the Arabs struggle with being a non-entity and one must in ones mind add to this that especially among Israelis, many consider the Palestinians, still, as a non-entity. And so, the rather refreshing light on the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict Khalidi gives is that of the Arab population and a disenfranchised community, without sliding into the rhetoric of accusing Israel of ethnic cleansing or equaling Zionism with Imperialism.

Also Eiland's and Pressman's contributions are quite good, so that this is one of the very few podcasts that will give you a basic insight in the history of the conflict going as far back as 1917. The only thing I found missing in the program was how this two-state solution as an option has been losing ground recently. While it is still largely held as the one and only viable option for a cold peace, only Eiland mentions one of the fundamental problems with it: the most Israel is politically capable of offering is less than any Palestinian Authority can accept. Add to this the deep mistrust between the peoples that have risen over the last decade and the eternal problems of the Palestinians to forge a basis for a viable state, not only economically, but also politically. The two-state solution seems, more than ever, apart from being politically out of reach, practically not sustainable.

More Rear Vision:
Fish depletion,
Follow up on Iran and Versailles,
Versailles 1919,
Iran 1953,
Coffee.

More Rashid Khalidi:
Sowing crisis - Us and the Middle-East,
Empire.

The Iran power struggle - LSE podcast

The LSE Public Lectures and Events at the London School of Economics, in short the LSE podcast, is great series of guest lectures at the LSE, which are almost invariably worth listening in on. Subjects that are of great interest are being discussed by world specialists and responded to by an educated audience.

Whether Hooman Majd, an Iranian journalist who lives in the US, is such a great specialist is something he actually shed doubt on in his own lecture The Ayatollah Begs to Differ - the path to an Islamic Democracy. Although he has written a book under the same title and he frequently visits Iran, he states there are no Iran experts and he certainly doesn't regard himself as one. The audience also turns out to have second thoughts. When Majd wants to argue that Iran is not a dictatorship, critical questions about that statement are met with cheers in the hall.

Nevertheless, this lecture is very interesting. It emphasizes once more, as we have heard in other podcasts, that Iran is in no way a monolithic state. It is not so culturally, ethnically, religiously and even politically. As others have done Majd paints a picture of two factions vying for power, the fundamentalists with Ahmedinijad in their side and the moderates with Moussavi. There might even be more flavors in the spectrum, but even in this picture, Majd tells how free, open and carefully democratic Iranian society is. And in this version of Iran, the road to further liberalization is open. And as to the nuclear program, Majd sees that as a scientific and energy project.

I have added the episode to the composite podcast feed Anne is a Man - Iran.

More LSE Events:
Justice,
In Search of Islam’s Civilization,
Religion and the Market - John Gray on LSE,
John Gray's cultural pessimism,
Omniculturalism.

Blog Action Day 2009 - Climate Change

Also this year I will participate in Blog Action Day, which is held every year on October 15th. Bloggers from all over the world and from all walks of life will pay attention to one and the same subject. The subject in 2009 will be Climate Change



Last year on October 15th I re-posted all podcast reviews that were related to that year's subject (poverty). This amounted to a manageable series. If I were to repost all podcast reviews on Climate Change, I'd hand you too much. I think I will summarize in stead of repost and, wherever possible, present all those podcasts in a composite feed (thanks to Huffduffer).

If you have any suggestions, let me know through the comments.

More Blog Action Day:
2008: Poverty,
2007: Environment.

What can you do with philosophy?

On Philosophy Bites Nigel Warburton and David Edmonds spoke with writer John Armstrong about the question 'What can you do with philosophy?'. For a philosophy podcast that reaches a wide public this is almost an obligatory question. One would almost expect the defining podcast for Philosophy Bites.

As the dialog set out, I was reminded of a radio program I heard many years ago with a mathematician who was addressing the similar question, what practical use does mathematics have. And surely this mathematician set out to tackle the problem of choosing the right partner in life with chance theory, stochastics and deliver the exact answer. Fine, but yet I feel that somehow the mathematician, or the philosopher for that matter, is in a way degrading himself by forcefully applying to the profane and should have some arrogance in not wishing to be practical.

Yet, in the end, John Armstrong seemed to have established more than the reported mathematician as I found myself discussing this episode with others who had heard it and noticed we all began applying the trains of thought and refining questions Armstrong had suggested. And so, especially in hindsight, this was indeed a very good issue of the podcast.

More Philosophy Bites:
Morality without God,
Pascal's Pensées,
Fourth Revolution,
Michael Sandel on what cannot be sold,
Aristotle's Ethics.

Ab Osterhaus - Voor 1 Nacht

KRO's voor 1 nacht sluit aan bij de actualiteit en had viroloog Ab Osterhaus bij Marc Stakenburg in de uitzending. Osterhaus mag daarin een poging ondernemen om de dreiging van de Mexicaanse griep en andere virus-infecties in perspectief te zetten. Daarmee is dit niet de eerste podcast waarin Osterhaus te beluisteren viel. Eerder was hij al te gast bij Martin Simek.

Osterhaus verschijnt kennelijk niet in de media op persoonlijke titel, maar als een man met een missie en die missie is de zaak der bestrijding van virusinfecties te dienen. Daarbij denken we vandaag vooral aan de Mexicaanse griep, maar Osterhaus maakt duidelijk dat die griep vooralsnog nog redelijk meevalt en dat de Nederlandse overheid aardig voorbereid is. Veel problematischer is de situatie met HIV en potentieel veel dreigender was de vogelgriep. Een mondiale ramp als in 1919 met de Spaanse griep, waarbij 50 miljoen mensen, 1% van de wereldbevolking omkwam, is bij de huidige pandemie niet te verwachten, maar ook met de huidige stand der wetenschap evenmin uit te sluiten, niet vandaag en niet met het virus van volgend jaar.

Wat tussen de regels duidelijk wordt is dat Osterhaus nogal eens wordt verweten dat hij te vaak en te nadrukkelijk alarm slaat. Een aantijging dat hij wellicht financieel belang heeft (aandelen in de farmaceutische industrie), blijft onbesproken. Hij is er vrij koel onder en ik kan me dat wel voorstellen; hij heeft een missie en de ergernis laat alleen maar zien dat hij in staat is om de aandacht te trekken. Wie zou het risico durven nemen dat hij toch gelijk heeft, lijkt hij te denken. Je zou in hem een venter van verzekeringspolissen kunnen zien, als je alleen het interview bij Stakenburg hoort. Bij Simek ligt al meer de nadruk op de algemene problematiek en dus op een arme mensendoder als HIV. Dan klinkt hij veel meer integer. In beide gevallen blijft hij een man met een missie.

Meer KRO's voor 1 nacht:
Freek de Jonge,
Bennie Jolink,
Henk Spaan,
Maarten Ducrot,
Candy Dulfer.

Capitalism and Confusion - Amartya Sen

The UChannel Podcast, also known as University Channel Podcast (audio feed, video feed), is a composite podcast which brings together lecture recordings from outstanding institutions all over the world. Among them are, The Council on Foreign Relations, The London School of Economics and the Royal Society for the Arts, which also have their own feeds out of which I review regularly.

The lectures are guest lectures on select topics, held by the leading authorities in the field. One such was a lecture at Cornell University by Professor Amartya Sen titled: Capitalism and Confusion. In this lecture Sen tackles some of the misconceptions about capitalism that are common in the wider public, but for the critical audience should hold no great surprises. Of course socialism has not been definitively defeated by capitalism. Of course capitalism cannot easily be defined. And of course, the crudest ideas about total freedom for market forces are not even held by a capitalist icon such as Adam Smith.

This is the first confusion that Sen addresses, but there is more confusion and more profound at that. Assuming that even Adam Smith accepted some level of government intervention in the market the confusion among capitalists as to how, when and to what extent becomes very compelling in the light of great global problems. Climate change, poverty, human rights and such are recognized by capitalists and are in need of effective address, but fail to get that address, even in capitalist theory.

More UChannel Podcast:
Sowing Crisis: The Cold War and the Middle East,
Taming Religion - Ian Buruma trilogy,
Averting the disasters of climate change,
Interfaith and Compassion,
Talent is overrated.

More Amartya Sen:
Justice.

Hoarding - Wise Counsel

An excellent psychology podcast is Wise Counsel (feed), which consists of interviews conducted by Dr. David van Nuys PhD. with assorted guests. David van Nuys is both a psychologist as well as an experienced podcaster and interviewer. His other podcast, Shrink Rap Radio (feed), also on the subject of psychology can also be warmly recommended.

In the latest edition of Wise Counsel, Dr. Van Nuys spoke with Gail Steketee on the subject of hoarding. Everybody has to a certain extent a hard time throwing away what he no longer needs, but for some people, gathering stuff in the house can become a problem and this is called hoarding. The clutter can take over the dwelling space and get out of control. Apart from the sanitary and other practical problems this entails for those who have to live in the clutter, it will frequently also lead to socially unfit behavior, where the hoarding person will shy away from company, or will let nobody in the house. Steketee has studied this problem and relates on its symptoms and treatment.

The DSM sticks hoarding under OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), but she claims that this classification is not right and predicts that in future editions the classification will accordingly be changed. Hoarding is a disorder of itself. It is most common among peopel over 50, but those who hoard, usually will have shown initial signs already at a very early age. Mostly the hoarding is checked by significant others until later age. The treatment is through CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) as, so far, no medication has been found that has a persistent effect on hoarding. Patients respond to the therapy, relatively well.

At the episode's page, you can also read a transcript of David van Nuys's interview with Dr. Gail Steketee.

More Wise Counsel:
History of Marriage,
Jonathan Engel,
Self-Help with PTSD,
Wise Counsel - Psychology Podcast Review,
Irvin Yalom.

Sowing Crisis - Rashid Khalidi

Last week I announced I was going to review a podcast with Rashid Khalidi again. Khalidi was a guest at the University of Chicago and held a lecture under the title Sowing Crisis: The Cold War and American Dominance in the Middle East. The lecture was recorded and published (also) in the compiled feed of UChannel Podcast.

Khalidi gives a very convincing historic analysis of the dealings of the Cold War opponents in the Middle East, especially the US. The point he makes is that the powers have used the Middle East to wage their war by proxy and that the tragic consequence of the matter has been, and still is today, that in the region radical and extremist elements are enforced and moderates are at a loss. In most recent times, the USSR has been replaced by Iran and still the cold war with the US is waged in Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt, Syria and Jordan.

If you choose to listen to the podcast (you must), be advised to also sit through the question and answer section. Among others there will be informative dialogs about the Israeli lobby in the US and about the democratic powers in the Arab world. Khalidi proves to be a very engaging, sharp and enlightening speaker.

More UChannel Podcast:
Taming Religion - Ian Buruma trilogy,
Averting the disasters of climate change,
Interfaith and Compassion,
Talent is overrated,
Ronald Reagan, a rebel.

Ferdinand I van Bulgarije - Veertien Achttien

De podcast Veertien Achttien (feed) vereist geen grondige voorkennis over de eerste wereldoorlog, maar ik kan me zo voorstellen dat het wel helpt om de themas, de rivaliteiten en de allianties op voorhand te kennen. De podcast gaat weliswaar chronologisch door de oorlog, maar doordat het dit doet in de vorm van korte biografietjes en springt daardoor van front naar front, van land naar land en van thema naar thema.

De grote kracht daarvan is dan weer dat het de doorgewinterede fan soms op een onverwachte plek brangt, zoals deze week. Hoevelen kennen het reilen en zeilen van de Bulgaren in de Grote Oorlog. Er is wel eens gezegd dat de Eerste Wereldoorlog eigenlijk de derde Balkanoorlog had moeten worden en voor de de Bulgaren was ze dat zeker. Tom Tacken vertelt hoe de Bulgaarse Tsaar (van Duitse komaf) pragmatisch kiest om zich aan de Centralen te verbinden en hoe het met zijn verlanglijstjes met betrekking to grond in Servie, Roemenie, Griekenland en zelfs Turkije schuift.

Dat was dan weer een verrassende en informatieve aflevering en ik verheug me nu al op de volgende. Aangekondigd wordt dat het over Rudyard Kipling zal gaan.

Meer Veertien Achttien:
Veertien Achttien in transit,
Pegoud, Grimm - Veertien Achttien,
Emmeline Pankhurst,
Lord Kitchener,
Walther Rathenau.

Wars, Empires, Nations 1648-1914 - Berkeley History

A reader of this blog left a comment and wrote: I love your informative blog, one of the best out there. BUT, I must disagree strongly with your comments on David Wetzel. He may very well have a distinctive style, but his lectures are mesmerizing! Anyone interested in this period of European history would do well to listen. A google search of Wetzel will show that he is truly a self made historian, and certainly of the first rank!

This is about the Berkeley history lecture series History 162A: Europe and the World: Wars, Empires, Nations 1648-1914 (audio feed). David Wetzel as a lecturer is unlike any other lecturer you will find on podcast. His teaching style is didactic and adapted, so it seems to me, to attentive students who are taking extensive notes. What stands out is that he uses a lot of repetitions in his speech, which is not as easy for leisure listening on the iPod.

If you can find a way of listening to Wetzel's lectures, you will gain access to a very interesting series on the geopolitics of Europe in early modern Europe. He quickly paints the picture of the uneasy equilibrium in Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and then the series kick off. He shows how Napoleon could rise, had to fall and then Europe entered a period of a century of nearly complete peace. After seven lectures I am eagerly looking forward to the next milestone, which is expected in the eighth: the revolutions of 1848.

The reply to my reader has to be: you are probably right that Wetzel is mesmerizing - he surely seems to be that way if you are present in class. I can also appreciate his didactics, but I stick with the statement I made from the start: the lecturing style is not the most accessible through the ear buds and you have to be prepared for that.

More Berkeley:
Introductory Topics in Religious Studies,
UC Berkeley webcasts Fall 2009,
Biological Anthropology,
History of Europe from the renaissance until today,
Economics,

Confronting the bomb - NBIH

Every issue of the podcast New Books In History is noteworthy. Each week Marshall Poe interviews the author of a book that was just published in the field of history. It allows us to listen to historians talk on a subject one of them is a specialist in - what more could the history podcast audience want?

The latest issue featured Lawrence Wittner who has done extensive research on the anti-nuclear weapons movement and has written a number of books on the subject, the last of which is somethign of a summary called 'confronting the bomb'. Wittner's claim is that the movement has been in existence ever since nuclear technology was feasible for weaponry. That is, as soon as scientists figured the military application an opposing movement came into existence. This was in the 1930's, long before the technology was actually researched and applied.

Wittner takes us through the history of the movement and wants to assure that the movement has been instrumental in the relative abolition we see today. This I find much less convincing, but surely the history is very interesting to have laid out.

More NBIH:
Henry Hudson's fatal journey,
Substance abuse in the midwest,
How could they continue - NBIH on WW1 soldiers,
After slavery was abolished,
Populism.

St. Thomas Aquinas - In Our Time

While preparing for Rosh Hashana, which will be a long weekend and will mostly keep me away from my blog, I want to quickly alert you to the fact that BBC's In Our Time is back and has delighted me in the first show with Thomas Aquinas.

The meaning of Thomas is that he took the theology of the Church further from St. Augustine (see previous review) and succeeded in incorporating Aristotelian philosophy and world view into the dogmas of Christianity.

More In Our Time
Logical Positivism,
The Sunni - Shia split,
Revenge Tragedy,
The Augustan Age,
The trial of king Charles I.

St. Augustine - Berkeley podcast lectures

One of the Berkeley lecture series on podcast I have been listening into is Introductory Topics in Religious Studies (audio feed) by Niklaus Largier.

This series as my impression is after the first four lectures, looks very much like an introduction into Christianity in a historic theological way. The lecturer Niklaus Largier has a rather strong German accent in his English, which takes some getting used to, but is no hurdle after all. I am not sure if I can keep up until the end, but we will see.

The reason I highlight the course today, is because the first four have St. Augustine feature centrally. I knew very little of Augustine, neither of his history, nor of his theology. This course gives some connection and shows how he marks a historic change in the Church, transforming it from a early religious movement into a full fledged tradition with a theology. In this theology he was influenced by Plato. In the next review I'll point to the next mile stone in Church theology, Thomas Aquinas, who took in Aristotle.

More Berkeley:
UC Berkeley webcasts Fall 2009,
Biological Anthropology,
History of Europe from the renaissance until today,
Economics,
Cyber Culture.

The message of Uncle Tom's Cabin - Forgotten Classics

A superior podcast recommendation is Julie Davis's reading of Uncle Tom's Cabin at the podcast Forgotten Classics. First of all, she reads the story in a most excellent fashion, bringing it forcefully to life. In addition she helps the listener with special terms and with explanations and interpretations she picked up from her research. Last but not least, she engages in dialog with her audience and makes their reactions part of the evaluation of the book and the reading. Julie makes this into more than an audio book, this is the Uncle Tom experience.

The Uncle Tom experience is, for me at least, a recovery of the book. A recovery from my memory - I read the book as a child - and a recovery from the standard criticism that has been delivered to us. The book would be too obedient, too stereotype and eventually racist and not serving the cause of the suppressed slaves and their descendants at all. Julie attempts to refute that and allow the book a come-back as a piece of literature and a sincere pamphlet for the sake of the oppressed. By all means, the alleged soft and sweet romanticism of the book, is quite refuted. Uncle Tom's Cabin is quite a grim book, even if it is devoutly religious, moralistic and concealed in its references to violence and sex.

The accusation of racism is not so easy to set aside and Julie and I have been talking back and forth about the subject. As we progress in the book, I have found Harriet Beecher Stowe at times outright racist and then outright anti-racist. Putting all the ideological passages together, the overall picture is not so clear. Therefore, I would suggest to put that aspect aside and not take the book or the writer to be of superior political, philosophical insight. Rather, the quality of the book, we discover more and more, lies with the drama and the humanity.

In the latest episode, where Julie reads chapters 35 through 37 of Uncle Tom's Cabin, she makes a remark that can be expanded upon. She says of the character Cassy, that she represents the worst of the plight of being a slave. It did not help her she grew up as the woman of an estate; she was sold as a slave after all. And it did not help her to have good masters along the way; she ended up with Simon Legree and the hellish existence that went with that.

This is not just true for Cassy, it is true for all characters in the book, even those that end up well, or are not slaves at all. The brilliance of Uncle Tom's Cabin, I would argue, turns out to be that Stow has succeeded in building a multi-charactered drama in which being a slave or a slave-holder for that matter is corrupting in the end. No good intentions and humane treatment can help the ever present danger of deliverance to the downside of slavery, to the excesses. For those who are not slaves, it presents too big a responsibility. For those who are slaves, it proves an unjust fate necessarily intertwined with their bounds. This, possibly, explains why the book was such a tremendous success even to the extent it can be argued it helped abolition come about. Stowe showed the American society their was no good way around slavery.

Apart from that being a drama that is extremely well crafted, it can easily be taken into a wider social context of subservience. How is the slavery of Uncle Tom's Cabin fundamentally different from segregation, low-wage countries, poverty and other social circumstances that render parts of society or the wider world powerless and another part in comfortable denial they can alleviate the powerlessness by their humanity.

Picture: Title-page illustration by Hammatt Billings (wikimedia commons)

More Forgotten Classics:
Uncle Tom's Cabin - Forgotten Classics,
The hidden opinions of Harriet Beecher Stowe,
The racism of Uncle Tom's Cabin,
Uncle Tom's Cabin revisited,
Cooking with Forgotten Classics.

Jan Wolkers - Het Marathon Interview 1986

Hij is er weer. Het allerleukste Marathon Interview uit de reeks. Ronald van den Boogaard spreekt met Jan Wolkers. Het was 1986. Het Marathon Interview was nog maar juist uitgevonden. De uitzendingen zouden 5 uur duren en niemand wist wat te verwachten. Voordat ik er de eerste keer naar luisterde (via podcast dan wel) en over schreef had ik al geluisterd naar de interviews met Kees Fens en Johnny van Doorn en daarin leken de gast en de interviewer op voorhand al moe van de lange zit en was lamlendigheid troef in het eerste uur, zodat ik het vervolg maar meteen opgaf. En daarna schreef ik over het interview met Jan Wolker het volgende:

Ik begon al bijna te denken dat 5 uur, in alle gevallen teveel van het goede is, maar toen begon ik aan het interview dat Ronald van den Boogaard in 1986 had met Jan Wolkers. Dat begint niet alleen goed, dat wordt ook steeds beter. Zo onvoorstelbaar goed zelfs, dat Cor Galis bij de aankondiging van een volgend uur de heren vraagt of het niet wat minder kan. Waarom zo'n oproep, dat snap ik niet helemaal, maar het is, hoe krom ook, wel een sterke indicatie hoe dit sprankelende radio is, die je aan je oordopjes gekluisterd houdt.

Wat mij geweldig bekoort in het interview is het onverstoorbare zelfbewustzijn van Wolkers. Hij stelt dat hij zich niet voorbereid heeft en zo komt het ook over. En zo gedraagt hij zich impromptu en zo vers van de lever is hij geweldig authentiek en authentiek geweldig. Voeg daarbij dat de interviewer zich uitstekend ingelezen heeft en Wolkers waardeert, zonder te vervallen in ademloze bewondering en de twee heren gaan geanimeerd op pad en laten elkaar niet meer los. Op zeker moment laten ook de radiopauzes (nieuws op het hele uur en een kleine storing) de heren niet meer van hun a propos brengen. Je zit er als stille deelnemer aan het intieme gesprek bij. Wat een delicaat genoegen.

Meer Het Marathon Interview:
Henk Hofland (o.a.),
Diepenhorst en andere politici,
W.F. de Gaay Fortman,
Freek de Jonge,
Het Marathon Interview - vernieuwde VPRO podcast.

Meer Ronald van den Boogaard:
Marathon Interview met Arie Kleywegt,
Ersatz TV,
Marathon Interview met G.A. Wagner,
NRC speelt Radio,
Marathon Interview met Ina Muller-Van Ast.

Boffins and WW I - Thinking Allowed

Here is a quick heads up about BBC's sociology program Thinking Allowed, before the newest will be put on line.

There was a fine show last week with two interesting issues. One, about so-called Boffins or Nerds or whatever the high achieving school children are pejoratively called. Presenter Laurie Taylor spoke with researcher Becky Francis from Roehampton University who studied the children and found out how they struggle in the balancing act between being good at school and being popular. What struck me the most is how thoroughly kids are aware of their position in the school class hierarchy - as if I did not remember.

The second subject may interest listeners beyond sociology. I know I have a lot of history podcast listeners among my readers who are profoundly interested in World War I. They might consider taking up Thinking Allowed's second subject. A study was made of letters sent home by soldiers in WWI and Laurie Taylor speaks with Michael Roper and Joanna Bourke what can be learned from these.

More Thinking Allowed:
Richard Hoggart,
Secular vs. Religious,
Renoir and Slumming,
Mizrahi Jews,
The weekly social science stop.

Yuval Malchi's History Pieces - קטעים בהיסטוריה

I love Yuval Malchi's podcast קטעים בהיסטוריה (pieces of history). It is one of those amateur history podcasts, where the author occasionally finds the time to share his knowledge with us. In Yuval's case this means jumping back and forth through periods and subjects in history, just as his personal research has come up - I assume.

And so, apparently, Yuval has taken up an economics perspective on history. His previous episode was about the Tulip Mania in 17th century Netherlands as the oldest and most obvious example of market bubble. Now, Mr. Malchi has come with two issues with more stories of economic history, this time from 19th and 20th century US. Why this had to be cut into two episodes, escapes me. The chapters came out simultaneously and neatly connect on to another. But this is merely a side step.

The stories we get are presented as the biggest enterprise mistakes on the last centuries, but although they are about enterprise decisions that were proven wrong by consecutive events, one can hardly cast the label mistake in advance. If Western Union didn't see anything in Bell's telephony or Mars didn't want to sponsor the movie ET, consecutive events may have caused the decision makers to deeply regret the route taken, but they must still have felt that the considerations were sound. There must be business decisions taken on much worse grounds and regardless the consequences, they could be regarded as more faulty. Still, the stories are very poignant, making the podcast informative and entertaining.

More קטעים בהיסטוריה (Pieces of History):
The Tulip Mania,
American Independence,
Lewis and Clark.

The empire - Ferguson and Khalidi

Big Ideas frequently reruns old lectures. For example there was one with Niall Ferguson on his book Empire. I had been looking for quite some time for a podcast with Ferguson, but abandoned the Big Idea lecture (mp3), because it dated 2002. With all the remarks Ferguson makes about Iraq, I felt this was hopelessly outdated.

But then I was following Columbia University's course Conceptual Foundations of International Politics, with a lecture by Rashid Khalidi about 'alternate views of American Supremacy' in which is mentions that in his opinion the US are an empire and takes that perspective to analyze how American Foreign policy is viewed and how it fails and succeeds. Khalidi mentions Ferguson as one who supports that view that the US is an empire and refers to him. And this made me take up the Ferguson lecture at Big Ideas again.

The point to take away from Ferguson's lecture is that the US are an empire by all means of its hegemony (especially in 2002) and that in comparison to its predecessor Great Britain, actually enjoys some significant advantages in the sense that it has fewer contesters and a huge hinterland. Yet, Ferguson makes a point why the US are not succeeding in being an empire in comparison to the British, for lack of two factors. One is that those that rule in name of the empire abroad and are military and not regular elite and therefore not the most qualified to rule and let prosper. Another is that nobody from the US thinks of moving abroad and making a life across the empire, as did so many Brits.

This connects well with what Khalidi points out at Columbia, are the weaknesses of the US foreign position. Still, this course is also rather dated (2007) and so my next podcast in this subject will be Khalidi's recent lecture (March 2009, at the University of Chicago) that came out in UChannel. (Sowing Crisis: The Cold War and American Dominance in the Middle East)

More:
Conceptual Foundations of International Policy - Columbia University,
Lawrence Freedman - Big Ideas,
New Learning - Don Tapscott on Big Ideas,
On Crime,
Why isn't the whole world developed?.

Henk Hofland, Herman Bianchi - Het Marathon Interview

Nog twee marathon interviews die ik er deze week tussendoor gepropt heb, zijn Ischa Meijer's gesprek met Henk Hofland uit 1986 (in de offciele feed) en Ger Jochem's marathon interview met Herman Bianchi uit 1992 (in mijn Huffduffer feed).

Van Hofland heb ik enorm genoten. Dat wil zeggen, van Hofland en Meijer samen, want niet alleen is Hofland fascinerend om naar te luisteren, maar Meijer is ook lekker op dreef als interviewer. Op allerlei manieren draait het gesprek rondom journalistiek, waarbij het persoonlijk aspect aan de orde komt, net zo zeer als het maatschappelijke. Met de uitspraak dat de verzorgingsstaat de journalistiek de das om heeft gedaan, kunnen we het gesprek beginnen en behalve dat dat een leuke, provocerende binnenkomer is, blijkt het ook nog haast onopgemerkt een rode draad.

Hofland vertelt over het bombardement op Rotterdam in 1940 en dat doet Bianchi ook, maar verder komt er bij Bianchi vooral veel vertrouwds uit. Ik moet er bij zeggen dat ik bij Bianchi gestudeerd heb en daarom zijn betogen voor de afschaffing van het strafrecht uitentreure heb aangehoord. Aangezien dit geen main stream, maar wel een heel serieus te nemen mening is, is het voor de argeloze luisteraar zeer aan te bevelen om Bianchi te horen. Ik voor mij ken de argumenten al, en wind mij er haast over op hoe onscherp Bianchi ze uitdrukt. Lag zijn hart er na het emeritaat niet meer in? Of was zijn mening altijd al zo sjabloonmatig? Hoe dan ook, vermeld dient ook te worden dat Ger Jochems hier een voortreffelijk interviewer is.

Meer Het Marathon Interview:
Diepenhorst en andere politici,
W.F. de Gaay Fortman,
Freek de Jonge,
Het Marathon Interview - vernieuwde VPRO podcast,
Karel van het Reve.

Meer Marathon Interviews via Huffduffer:
Arie Kleywegt.

Diepenhorst en andere politici - Het Marathon Interview

Ik geloof dat ik nu wel minstens een marathon interview per dag hoor. De nieuwe feed van de podcast werd vorige week in rap tempo afgevuld met de interviews van 1986. Ik had er in het vereleden een paar van gerecenseerd en van de meesten het begin geluisterd en het merendeel terzijde geschoven. Je kan ten slotte niet alles afluisteren, zeker niet van de sessie die vijf uur duren.

De eersten die afvielen waren de politici. Ik heb het al niet zo op met politici in interviews. Zij zijn in het algemeen te goed getraind in het bewaren van hun evenwicht, zodat er veelal weinig te beleven valt en voor veel geprogrammeerde praatjes en aangemeten houdinkjes te genieten zijn. Als het dan bovendien over toestanden van meer dan twintig jaar geleden gaat, dan zijn juist die zaken het meest gedateerd. En toch kon ik het niet laten om ze een herkansing te geven.

Geertsema, Van der Reijden, Diepenhorst en De Gaay Fortman komen in de eerste jaargang van Het Marathon Interview aan het woord. Ditmaal heb ik alleen Diepenhorst uitgezeten, maar ook bij hem is alles te gedateerd om echt van harte aan te bevelen. Tja, de kabinetsformatie van 1986. Had Nijpels het goed gedaan? Heeft Lubbers het goed gedaan? Het zal allemaal wel weer. Wat je van Diepenhorst en in iets mindere mate Geertsema meeneemt is de spreekstijl. Dat heb je tegenwoordig niet meer, die gedragenheid. Wat er bij Diepenhorst dan nog bijkomt is het archaische formuleren en bijna onwereldlijk taalgebruik (wat is 'innerlijke zending', in godsnaam?), maar het raakte me wel vanwege mijn juridische studie. (Dat was trouwens ook in 1986.) Diepenhorst spreekt als de arresten van de Hoge Raad die ik moest leren. En als je dan denkt hem te kunnen afdoen als een fossiel van de jaren dertig, dan verrast hij je op het eind met onverwacht progressieve denkbeelden.

Meer Marathon Interviews:
W.F. de Gaay Fortman,
Freek de Jonge,
Het Marathon Interview - vernieuwde VPRO podcast,
Karel van het Reve,
Jan Montyn.

Reader's Question - Remember playback position

A couple of days ago a reader wrote me a mail containing the following concern: "I just can't figure out how to get a podcast in a way that I can pause, stop and continue later."

It turned out, this reader listened to podcasts directly from the web. Web browsers call an embedded player to run the file on the fly and as a consequence, they will not remember the playback position. Remember Playback Position is a default setting you will get when you subscribe to podcasts in iTunes. If however, you are playing a direct download, the files will not have this setting. You can, however, change it.

Select any file in iTunes you want to be able to listen to and continue where you left off afterwards. Right click the file and choose Get Info.

The info of the file will pop up. Here you have several tabs, one them being Options. Select Options and then check Remember Playback Position. Click OK and you are done.



Once this setting is chosen in iTunes, it will also work once you have transferred the file to iPod. Other players and other podcatcher must have various ways to achieve the same effect.

More basic instructions:
Preference settings per podcast,
Subscribing to podcasts in iTunes,
Install iTunes,
downloading audio files,
Listening on-line.

Anne is a Man reviewed

Recently my blog was evaluated at two other blogs and I wish to show you those reviews.

A short review was delivered by my podcast review colleague at The Podcast Place: "The man called Anne reviews many podcasts that you won’t find on this site and his writing is very good. Like me, he is a fan of podcasts and also like me, does not give the podcasts he reviews ratings."

A much longer review was delivered from the blog PTSD Spirituality; Healing Souls Wounded by PTSD, which is written by the theologian and US Army veteran and PTSD struck John D. Zemler PhD. The blog is mainly about Zemler's PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) experiences and his views how spirituality can point the way out of the infliction. Pointing to a blog about podcasts then seems like a far away side step, but here is how John Zemler makes the point that learning is a way out of PTSD and that the disorder frequently goes with symptoms that make it extremely hard to read and to check in with regular classes, not to mention the financial constraints. In this respect the kind of intellectual podcasts I review offer exactly the kind of low-threshold, free education in your own time and pace that PTSD patients can benefit from.

"In the world of podcasting, Anne provides [a] service. He spends a lot of time evaluating and finding the best of the best when it comes to podcasts and then posts them for you and me to listen and learn.

What I find most amazing is that Anne does this for free. He does not make money from this service. He has a love of learning, podcasting, and making it available to whomever is interested in using it. [...]

Anne even has helpful tutorials that explain what a podcasts is, how to use an RSS feeder, and so on. For many blog readers this is old hat. For folks like me, who are on the wrong side of the digital divide, this is very helpful information that enables the internet to be useful to me – and not be only something which bewilders me."

Arie Kleywegt - Marathon Interview recensie

Eerder deze week meldde ik dat Ronald van den Boogaard over zijn Marathon Interview met Arie Kleywegt had geschreven. Aangezien dit interview niet in de officiele podcast feed wordt aangeboden, had ik hem zelf via Huffduffer gemaakt (feed Arie Kleywegt).

Inmiddels heb ik het drie en een half uur durend interview beluisterd. Het is zeer de moeite waard; ik kan het van harte aanbevelen.

War in winter: diplomacy - Historyzine

Historyzine's recounting of the War of Spanish Succession, brings us in the latest issue of the podcast to the winter of 1705. The main protagonist in Jim Mowatt's version of this history is the Duke of Marlbourough. Until the winter of 1705 he has had a successful campaign and now the war takes a break and preparations begin for the next round, after the winter in 1706.

These preparations consist of diplomacy. Marlbourough travels around the courts of his allies to assure their continued support in the next part of the war. Mowatt makes this lull in the fighting an extra interesting part of the history. He describes how Marlbourough has to use all his talents in order to placate the various allies in the east. Once having done that, he makes his last stop in The Hague, where the closest allies, the Dutch are and only on the last day of the year he returns to England.

The importance of this round of diplomacy is made clear especially by the example of Prussia. Marlbourough, in Mowatt's history, closes a fateful deal with Prussia, that keeps this rising power from allying with the Swedes and paving the way to the consistent growth of the small kingdom, to the eventual power that would unite the German Reich.

More Historyzine:
The lines of Brabant,
Historyzine at its best,
The battle of Blenheim,
Reliving the War of Spanish Succession,
The year 1703.