Flavius - Joodse Geschiedenis en Cultuur

Na de eerste aflevering van Flavius, is het programma aanzienlijk in kwaliteit verbeterd. Ik vond het al een aanrader, maar ben na het kris kras beluisteren van afleveringen nog meer gaan waarderen. Flavius biedt een keur aan historische en culturele onderwerpen die allemaal een joodse en meestal ook een Nederlandse touch hebben.

Vaak ook gaat het verder dan Nederland en voorbeelden daarvan zijn me bijgbleven in de muzikale bijdrages over Felix Mendelssohn in aflevering 6 - je gaat meteen op zoek naar Mendelssohn in je eigen collectie. In aflevering 5 gaat het over Klezmer, dat blijkbaar niet alleen door Joden gespeeld wordt, maar tevens is dat onderdeel van een genealogische zoektocht van Jeff Hamburg. Daarbij is er elke week een geweldig interessante column van Tamara Benimah, met veel exotische Sefardische muziek.

Verder was er film met Wals met Bashir die ik zelf ook gezien had en goed mee kon voelen met de commentaren. Het feit dat het een (half-)animatiefilm is, maakt het meer een document over het drama van de oorlog en het narratief van de betrokkenen, dan een onverkropbaar objectiverend, moraliserend realiteitsschets. En meer.

Het is jammer dat de afleveringen niet van heldere tags en beschrijvingen voorzien worden zodat je ze op onderwerp uit de feed kan kiezen.

Meer Flavius:
Podcast Flavius bij de Joodse Omroep.

Jews in the Russian army - NBIH

The podcast New Books In History continues to excite me. This continues to be the most informative, serious and yet even entertaining podcast in the history genre. I keep lagging behind the new releases and so my reviews will continue to jump back and forth through the feed as I pick and choose as erratically as the proverbial child in the candy shop.

Another one in the multitude of gems host Marshal Poe offers is the interview with Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern who not only wrote a very interesting book about which he tells, but also has a fascinating personal history, intertwined with the same tale. As a result the interview is not only interesting for historians of Jewish culture, of Russian history, of minority assimilation, of enlightened monarchs and their policies and so on, but also it is a thought-provoking listen on the subject of Jewish identity.

There is little I want to give away, but this: Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern looked for Jews that were enrolled in the Russian army during the 19th century and found them. Listen and find out whether these Jews were an example of Russian force and repression or of Jewish assimilation. Pay special attention to the word 'normalcy'.

This is a must listen for everybody. I must have written this about every previous episode, I think and I know I am going to write it about the next one I heard: the interview with Yuma Totani.

More NBIH:
Who will write our history?,
Sentiments in International Relations,
Ronald Reagan,
Prokofiev,
Evolution, genetics and history.

Nietzsche in a nutshell - History 1c (UCLA)

In the latest lecture of UCLA's History 1c, professor Lynn Hunt kicks off with Wagner's ride of the Valkyries and pays a lot of attention to Friedrich Nietzsche, which brings two suspects of Nazi-inspiration together and almost naturally will serve as a cultural explanatory to the twentieth century wars. In addition Sigmund Freud appears and it is indeed the aim of the lecture to embed Nietzsche and Freud in the history lesson.

It is, rightfully so, said that the history of the nineteenth century is the history of -isms. Rationalism, Romanticism, Liberalism, Socialism, Capitalism make up the mental landscape and if some individual thinkers can be especially influential, they get their own isms like Darwin and Marx. But Nietzsche and Freud, who so predominantly inspire the end of the nineteenth century, where everything has a place in one or several isms of various kinds, have no such suffix and stand on their complex own.

Especially Nietzsche I find hard to get a grip on and I am very grateful for the brief way in which Professor Hunt explains him. Naturally this falls short of any philosophical expose, but it amply serves to give Nietzsche's writings and persons the content it needs to clarify the historic influence. I have never had that handed to me in such a comprehensive fashion. And this is one of the many reasons why History 1c is a great history course to follow on podcast.

More History 1c:
Industrialization and Italian unification,
History since 1715.

BBC's In Our Time - always recommended

Here is a quick update about BBC's In Our Time, which I must deliver in order to get a clean slate. Since my latest review we have had three very good programs which I hope you all downloaded and if you haven't listened to it, go ahead and do.

The issue about Suffragism gives insight to the political activism that preceded women getting the vote in Great Britain. About radicals, moderates and those women who opposed. This is not only a fascinating history of recent political developments, also of gender, treatment of women and political prisoners and controversy. Controversial, for example, is the question whether the Great War expedited or delayed the eligibility of women for the vote.

The building of St. Petersburg is more than just a history of Peter the Great's feat to build a whole new city for himself in the Baltic. It is also a story of Russia's struggle for modernity and of autocratic ruler's capacity to shape their empire.

The vacuum of space is one of those scientific In Our Time programs. Every season there are a handful of those and they invariably are the toughest for me to follow. I dare to predict they are the toughest to follow for the whole regular audience of In Our Time. Yet, to the credit of this particular instance it needs to be said it had me glued to the iPod until the end.

More In Our Time:
Brave New World,
Rafael's School of Athens and the depiction of Plato and Aristotle,
The Boxer Rebellion,
The library of Alexandria,
The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot.

Nursery University - Mighty Movie Podcast

I have just begun to make myself acquainted with a podcast that was brought to my attention by a reader: the Mighty Movie Podcast. (You will have to excuse me for not writing the name in persistent capitals, as the makers do) Podcaster and film critic Dan Persons interviews film makers about their work.

I usually go through a couple of episodes before beginning to see the form of some general review, but I was lucky enough to pick up as a first listen such an interesting chapter, I couldn't resist pointing you directly to that, before knowing more broadly about the show.

Nursery University is the title of a documentary made by Marc Simon and Matthew Makar about the rat race New York parents get involved in in order to get their toddlers enrolled in nothing but the best day-care centers. While describing how they could get to make the film, Makar and Simon already suggest that also elsewhere in the US this phenomenon is likely to exist and I can vouch it also happens in Israel. So even though they assume their picture describes a New York reality, I think deep down it is universal.

If you imagine the hysteria and sham involved, you come to appreciate all the more the efforts the filmmakers had to go through in order to realize this project. Dan Persons podcast gives a wonderful concise view behind the screens. If the podcast is regularly as good as this one episode, it is a great treasure trove, not necessarily just for film buffs.

Robert Heinlein according to Ran Levi

Every once in a while, עושים היסטוריה! עם רן לוי (Making History with Ran Levi) pays attention to a writer and his work, mostly in the realm of Science Fiction in stead of digging into a subject of the history of science which is Ran Levi's usual subject. These are invariably great episodes.

Among these generally recommended is specifically the recently delivered episode about Robert Heinlein. With great respect, admiration and the usual, typical Israeli tongue in cheek, Ran Levi goes over Heinlein's biography, work and the wild variety of interpretations available. Heinlein is portrayed as a very original figure whose ideas cannot be molded into one commonplace stream or another, yet which stands out as smart, challenging, provocative and eventually accurate.

Apart from all the content of literature and political philosophy, the way Ran Levi deals with Heinlein involves enough science, history and technology to make it neatly fit in with the general subject of the series. Once again, he has shown to be, by far, the most professional Israeli podcaster.

More Making History with Ran Levi:
Diamond Rain and other phenomena,
Blood,
Myths and pseudo-knowledge,
What goes up, must come down,
Douglas Adams.