Heads-up for 22 November 2010

Mahabharata Podcast
The Hawk and the Dove
The last three stories of the long series of tales in the Book of the Forest. Yavakrita, Jantu and the Hawk & the Dove.
(review, feed)

Archaeo News Podcast
Issue 179
British archaeology volunteers trace transport links back 4,000 years
Ancient Orcadians decorated their houses with homemade paint
Bronze Age hoard found intact in Essex
Tool-making technique is much older than thought
Prehistoric migrants found in Gloucestershire
Silbury Hill's construction process was more important than design
Copper Age history of Armenia revealed
Bulgarian archaeologist stumble upon 8000-year-old skeleton
10,000-year-old camp site unearthed along USA/Canada border
Neolithic knives found at Tirnony Dolmen
Ancient megalithic sites discovered in Russia
Archaeologists uncover early Neolithic activity on Cyprus
Modern humans emerged earlier than thought
(review, feed)

The History of Rome
116- Here Come the Illyrians
Claudius Gothicus became Emperor in 268 and promptly lead the legions to victories against the Goths and the Alamanni. Unfortunately he died before he was able to reunify the Empire.
(review, feed)

Paradigms
November 21, 2010
Rev. Dr. Katherine O'Connell of East-West Faith Seminary, Rabbi Roger Ross of The New Seminary for Interfaith Studies, and Rev. Tim Miner of the International Academy for Interfaith Studies join us to discuss Interfaith. We learn about World Interfaith Week, February 1 - 7, 2011.
(review, feed)

Zencast
288 - Joy & It's Causes
Dharma teaching by Jack Kornfield
(review, feed)

The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Here is a podcast that I want to recommend you simply listen to. I do not want to say too much about it. On Big Ideas, listen to Robert Adams give his interpretation of Moshin Hamid's novel The Reluctant Fundamentalist. (feed)

The novel and Adams's interpretation give a personal touch to the clash of cultures. It also broadens the perception of Anti-Americanism beyond the world of Islam. As a matter of fact, Adams is of the opinion the novel is not about religion at all. It is about identity, about the identity one aspires and the culture to which one would want to belong. In that sense the whole discussion is thoroughly modern: culture has become a matter of choice, but that is not Adams's main point and probably also not Hamid's.

One thing I cannot resist to point out: Adams claims not to know of any other novel that has a monologue of the main character and a discussion partner who, although we do not hear his words, we get to know through the reactions of the speaker. My immediate thoughts of comparison went to the novel by Albert Camus, La Chute.

More Big Ideas:
Ayaan Hirsi Ali and the quest against Islam,
Jewish Humor,
JRR Tolkien versus CS Lewis,
Malcolm Gladwell,
The Age of Inequality.