New podcasts in December 2009 - Anne is a Man

We are closing off 2009 with another 17 new podcasts that got a first mention on the blog - all in spite of the writer's block I am still struggling with. Before I take you to the list of these new podcasts, I want to announce I am going to improve my listings of history podcasts. History podcasts make up the largest category of podcasts that I have reviewed so far. At my history podcast directory you will find a list of podcasts covering over 130 podcasts. I will continue to maintain this directory, but in addition I want to supply shorter list in subcategories, so that it will be easier for you to find what you are looking for.

Happy New Year in 2010!

Podularity (review, site, feed)
George Miller speaks with authors about their books.

Introduction to Theory of Literature (Yale) (review, site, feed)
University lecture series into modern literary theory.

Death (Yale) (review, site, feed)
Philosophy lecture series dealing with matters related to death. The existence of the soul, immortality, suicide, dying and the nature of death.

Dante (Yale) (review, site, feed)
University lecture series about Dante's Divine Comedy.

Indicast (review, site, feed)
Podcast about current affairs in India.

Beyond the Book (review, site, feed)
Podcast about copyright.

The Kamla Show (review, site, feed)
Indian cultural podcast.

Learning Hebrew through podcast:
Hebrew - SurvivalPhrases (review, site, feed)
Very basic and not always faultless lessons in the (modern) Hebrew language.

Hebrew Podcasts (review, site, feed)
Basic podcast with phrases and grammar of modern day Hebrew.

Learn Hebrew Pod (review, site, feed)
Basic podcast with phrases and grammar of modern day Hebrew.

SBS Hebrew program (review, site, feed)
Australian radio in Hebrew. An excellent chance to hear living Hebrew. Fit for the more advanced learners.

University press podcasts:
Chicago Audio Works (review, site, feed)
Harvard Press; authors off the page (review, site, feed)
MIT press podcast (review, site, feed)
Stanford University Press Podcast (review, site, feed)
University of California Press podcast (review, site, feed)
Yale press podcast (review, site, feed)

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I love to get new podcast recommendations. You can let me know your preferences by commenting on the blog or sending mail to Anne is a Man at: Anne Frid de Vries (in one word) AT yahoo DOT co DOT uk

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Learn Hebrew through podcast

At the age of 32 I had to learn Hebrew from scratch. My starting point lay with my native Dutch and a couple of surrounding Western European languages. If you want to learn Hebrew by podcast you will find that the supply comes with English as a starting language and I will assume your starting point will be much the same as mine.

After some time, I did an 'Ulpan' (language class for immigrants in Israel) which is more intensive than podcast by a considerable magnitude. The reason I mention the Ulpan is that I found myself in class with as many as 20 nationalities and half of the students starting from English or another European language such as myself. For all of us, Hebrew was very outlandish and we struggled with much the same issues, although the situation for the native English speakers seemed most complicated. For them the differences and the complications seemed the most numerous.

That is bad news. The good news is though that the difficulties with Hebrew lie in the beginning of your learning curve. Picking up the alphabet, adapting to script from right to left, getting used to the pronunciation and to the odd root system of Hebrew words all hit you very hard from the get go. However then it turns out Hebrew is regular like mathematics. Grammar is as straightforward as it can be and the roots make a lot of sense after you have gotten used to them.

Real Hebrew therefore can be learned by the persistent who can take the initial barriers. Accept the baby steps at the start. Accept the seemingly useless verb exercises that skip the commons like to be and to have and force you to learn to conjugate verbs like to guard first. (I hated that) Podcasts can be a great help. Just do not forget to spend time on grammar and writing. Without that the token phrases will never make sense and remain sterile.

Hebrew - SurvivalPhrases (site, feed) - Very basic and not always faultless lessons.

Hebrew Podcasts (site, feed) - Basic podcast with phrases and grammar.

Learn Hebrew Pod (site, feed) - Basic podcast with phrases and grammar.

SBS Hebrew program (site, feed) - Australian radio in Hebrew. An excellent chance to hear living Hebrew. Fit for the more advanced learners.

Jesus, Global Warming and more

Philosophy Bites - Nigel Warburton interviewed Don Cupitt who treats Jesus as a Philosopher. How you can make a modern, humanist freethinker of Christ. (site, feed)

Namaste Stories - Again, this narration podcast tells a tale from the perspective of a teacher. But in this class of immigrants learning the local language, I identified with the pupils. (site, feed)

Death (Yale) - arguments about body and soul and the immortality of the soul. Disappointing in the sense that some of these discussion appear to me purely semantic, but this is not accounted for. (site, feed)

Entitled Opinions - Robert Harrison gives a monologue on Wallace Stevens. High-brow literature lecture. (site, feed)

New Books in History - On the history of the trade union ILWU in the US. (site, feed)

In Our Time (BBC) - The current download is about the Samurai and as off tomorrow that one will be gone and you will be able to enjoy and issue about Mary Wollstonecraft. (site, feed)

The Kamla Show - I tried this show for the first time and heard a very charming interview with author Sadia Shepard. She went to look for her Muslim roots in Pakistan, but found Jewish roots in India. (site, feed)

Making History with Ran Levi - Global Warming need not be caused by humans. Controversial issue of this Israeli podcast about the history of science. (site, feed)

Veertien Achttien - The best history podcast in Dutch, with a weekly biography of one of the participants in WW1. This podcast will continue as long as the Great War lasted. (site, feed)

Help for podcast listeners on Anne is a Man!

The running assumption on this blog is that readers know how depart from a review and get the podcast to their players as they wish. Yet, this frequently is not the case. Many readers turn to me with questions on how to get to the podcasts they would like. Therefore, I have written a large variety of instructional posts giving pointers from the most basic to the more advanced podcast finding and listening. Here is a starting post from where you will be able to get the help you need.

First of all there is a set of posts that lay out the elementary steps of podcast listening:
1- listen on line
2- download audio files
3- get iTunes
4- put feeds in iTunes
With these posts you will have your basics covered. From here you can continue to read the reviews and you will be able to make it to any podcast described.

In addition there are are a couple of posts that explain some of the basic technologies involved. This is stuff you do not have to know, like you do not have to know how your car works in order to drive it. It helps though, to have some general understanding of what is going on. Especially if you find yourself in a conversation about podcasts.
What is podcasting in 3 minutes - An animated video from YouTube that gives you a description of podcasts in the most elementary terms. There are a couple of additional remarks to make, but for starters the video will do.
Video explaining RSS - From the same source an animation that explains about RSS. RSS is the pushing technology that allows your podcatcher to find and download new podcasts, but it also is used to push other web content to you; new posts on this blog for example.
What is RSS - Read Anne is a Man automatically - An explanation about RSS and how you can subscribe to the RSS of my blog (and others).

There are also advanced tips I have written. Pointers how to use iTunes optimally and how to use other tools to track podcasts.
Reader's Question - Remember playback position - Here is an issue you should not run into if you use iTunes the regular way. But since the question has come up from readers several times, it was addressed in length.
Preference settings per podcast - Once you subscribe to a large number of podcasts, you may want to deal with each one in a different fashion and here is how.
iTunes 9 - help for the podcast listener - Since iTunes upgraded from version 8 to 9, new functionality regarding podcasts have become available. I describe how you can benefit from some of the new features.
Suggestion for the advanced podcast listener - When you lose track of the multitude of podcasts in iTunes, you might use Google Reader in stead. I relate how I do this myself.
Devising your own podcast feed - Huffduffer - If you run into audio that is not syndicated (not offered as a podcast) you can put it in a feed by yourself at Huffduffer. You can even compose your own feed by collecting and recombining audio from various sources.
Using playlists for podcasts - Designate the order in which your player plays the podcasts and let it automatically start the next after finishing the previous.
Useful tools for podcast listeners - Three tools to help you increase volume, convert anything to mp3 format and edit out silence and noise.
Other podcatchers than iTunes (1) - The beginning of a search for an alternative to iTunes as read and download client.
Where are my files? - Help on finding podcast files on your computer. (soon)

Last but not least, you may want to have some guidance on how to search for podcasts on your own. You could read my posts about sources:
My podcast sources - A relatively old, but near complete overview of sources for finding podcasts.
Five free university lecture sites - University lectures that are podcasts are available in a multitude, but not especially easy to find and not always of sufficient quality. Here are five university sources that are worth to make a start at.

In case you have questions to which you did not find the answer, please leave a comment here and I'll be more than happy to address it. You can also mail to Anne is a Man at: Anne Frid de Vries (in one word) AT yahoo DOT co DOT uk
And you can connect with Anne is a Man on:
Facebook,
Twitter,
The Podcast Parlor on Ning.
The Podcast Parlor on Facebook.

A belated Hanukkah picture

Before we celebrated Jonathan's fifth birthday, we had a very festive Hanukkah (Chanuka). As you can see. Standing is my oldest son Itamar (8) and sitting my youngest Jonathan (5).

Bhopal, Russell and more

Binge Thinking History - Amateur history podcast that currently retells the history of the British Navy. In the latest episode: New tactics and technology help the Navy. And the loss of the US, seems to also serve the British Empire more than it harms. (site, feed)

Rear Vision - This radio program on Australia's ABC had a rerun of their excellent issue about the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, more widely known as the conference that produced the controversial Treaty of Versailles. Read my former review of this show: Versailles 1919.

Indicast - A new podcast I started following. About current affairs in India. The episode I would want to recommend, in spite of very poor audio quality is a discussion about the continuous harm from the Bhopal gas disaster and the poor handling of the affair. (site, feed)

Philosophy Bites - This is undoubtedly one of the best intellectual podcasts on the web. Very good was the edition with AC Grayling on Bertrand Russell. (site, feed)

UChannel Podcast / LSE Podcast - In conversation with Amartya Sen. This edition took me a long time to listen to. The audio was too poor to allow for listening in the car or in the mall (I love listening to podcasts while shopping), but nevertheless a very interesting and engaging talk - as usual with Amartya Sen. (LSE site, UCP feed)

I am checking a number of book and publisher podcasts:
Beyond the Book (feed) - About issues of copyright
Chicago Audio Works (feed)
Harvard Press; authors off the page (feed)
MIT press podcast (feed)
Stanford University Press Podcast (feed)
University of California Press podcast (feed)
Yale press podcast (feed)