Poverty podcasts to be reviewed

Also this year I have decided to take part in Blog Action Day. On this day, yearly on the 15th of October, bloggers from all over the world and from all walks of life will pay attention to one and the same subject. The subject this year will be poverty.

I will be reposting all of the podcast reviews on relevant podcasts I have written in the past, but I would appreciate if you reader could suggest me some more. You can communicate your podcast tips by leaving a comment anywhere in the blog or send me a mail, Anne Frid de Vries (in one word) AT yahoo DOT co DOT uk.



My contribution last year: The environment in podcasts.

Philosophy 6 - Berkeley lecture series

Berkeley's Philosophy 6 or, Man, God, and Society in Western Literature is directly related to Philosophy 7 (Existentialism in Literature and Film) and I couldn't say whether the one follows up on the other or the other way round. As far as complexity is concerned, both lecture series are no easy ride, but taking number 7 first and then 6 seems the best way to go. In any case that is what I have been doing.

I have been trying to finish the courses for some time, but it takes a lot of effort. As usual philosophy is too complicated to idly take with you on the iPod to the supermarket or the highway - it takes much more concentration than that. Also the lecturer, for both courses, Hubert Dreyfus, demands an extra effort. He may seem a bit unorganized, but yet totally dedicated and very much on top of the matter, even if he is still struggling with it. He knows his quotes and is quick to pass them around, but sometimes cannot find them in time, or isn't entirely happy with what he finds. And so you are on the edge of your chair, figuratively speaking, and surely taken in into the subject - if you give it the chance.

Philosophy 6's hero is Heidegger and the subject matter seems to try to take you to a very fundamental critique of Western Society. I write that it seems to, because I have heard only so few lectures of the course, in the current, or past installments. Yet I am hell bent on trying again, for I am mesmerized by Dreyfus and his subject. The idea evolves roughly around the following. Western culture is schizophrenically based on two philosophical approaches which are the Greek Platonic and the Judeo-Christian tradition which are in some ways diametrically opposed to each other, the first so general and deductive, the second so subjective, but both so absolute. Whereas Philosophy 7 may seem to give some idea Dreyfus is mostly attracted to the subjective mood, through existentialism, Philosophy 6 reveals he also is against the absolutism. I have found him say he wants to drive to a certain pluralism or polytheism, but that remains rather vague. But it is profoundly the subject of Philosophy 6. I want to find out what it exactly is.

Previously:
Fear and Trembling - Kierkegaard,
Hiroshima mon amour,
Existentialism - Philosophy 7.

The Second World - UChannel podcast review

Parag Khanna was invited at the University of Chicago to speak about the new global order. This connects with his recent book: The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order. Khanna elegantly resuscitates the term Second World. What once was the Soviet block and distinguished thus from the Capitalist Block and the poor Third World, in his mind, actually still exists. The lecture was recently podcast at the University Channel Podcast (also known as UChannel).

There still are many states, at various advanced stages of development, that neither can be put in the block with the US, nor can they be written off in the Third World section, where we gather the lost, hopeless and failed states. These are the states that thrive in the modern new balance of power in which they play all sides.

The US is no longer the world's hyper-power. It shares super power status with others, notably with rising China, but according to Khanna also the EU. Other economies come in second place as balancing powers: Brazil, Japan, India and so on. They and especially yet another group, make up the second world. Khanna traveled around and analyzed them. Turkey, Ukraine, Venezuela and Libya and observes their new way to success: playing all sides. Hiking along with not just either US, EU or China, but with all of them. As I listen I thought: I hope Israel does the same.

More UChannel:
Repairing Failed States,
The Collapse (Republicans and America),
New Map for the Pentagon,
Slavery and the Supply Chain,
Iran 2009.

More Parag Khanna:
The end of Hegemony.

UCSD MMW 6 - history lecture podcast

Following lecture podcasts by UCSD is something of an ordeal as a result of the technical setup the lecturers use for recording. The only reason to put up with this is the high quality of the content. In the MMW (making of the modern world) series, I reported about MMW 3 which is roughly about the Middle Ages, and they were excellent.

UCSD has the recordings automated. Lecturers sign up and then at the set time and place, recording starts. At best this means some silence at the beginning and end of the lecture. It gets worse when lecture starts early, or the automation goes into effect when the series is already past the first lecture. Then you simply jump right into the middle. A final problem is that the feed goes off line at the end of the semester, which in cases can be a mere handful of days after the last lecture. Or you have to make do with whatever you downloaded.

MMW 6, of this summer is about modern times. Say, World War I until today. The first three lectures have been omitted from the feed (late sign up), so you'll drop in the middle of an expose about the history of Israel and the course moves on from over there.

The good thing I noticed immediately, is that the Professor - Ivan Evans - didn't start the Palestine history in 1948. We get a lot of facts and analysis from what happens before that. However, there were some rather weak points I noticed. Evans is not a very well ordered speaker, so it is hard to follow him. At the same time he is very outspoken in his opinions, which, together, leaves you wonder about various foundations for these opinions. On top of that, he slips up with the data, he is either inaccurate, vague, unsure, or on some points wrong. (For example, he persistently refers to the Israeli prime minister as 'the president of Israel')

There are quite a few good podcasts out there that in one way or the other touch upon the modern era (for example the closing lectures of Berkeley's History 5 or Stanford's The history of the International System). As a consequence, this MMW 6 installment falls short. Also with respect of Evans's standing as a professor and the quality of his opinions suffer from the errors and ambiguities. There are a lot of good and interesting points he makes, but in order to be able to have a good framework and not be distracted or misinformed, I'd advise to hear other podcasts first, before embarking upon listening to this course.

MMW 3:
Herbst,
Chamberlain.

Geography C110 - Berkeley Lecture series

There is a Geography course on Berkeley's Webcasts called Economic Geography of the Industrial World (link) by Professor Richard A. Walker. The list of subjects look very promising. It looks very economic also, but in the first lecture Walker emphasizes the geographical nature of the course. This means, less equations than to be expected in economics and more importance attributed to geographical notions such as regions, resources and so on.

The first lecture is also an expose about crisis and Walker claims he has been able to explain and even predict the most economic crises of the last decades. His analysis, if not convicing, at least shows how regions are important. The housing crises, now and the one of the early nineties, he demonstrates, occurred in very specific and even roughly the same areas and left the rest of the country rather unaffected. What he goes on to explain about price and credit developments not only sounds completely economic, but also the dynamic doesn't seem to me entirely alien to what economic models show.

So it is going to be really interesting to see how this claim of geography on economic issues will develop. The course is easy to follow, even if you miss out on the graphs Walker shows. I am definitely goign to sit this one out until the end. When relevant, I will write more reviews.

More geography:
Global Geopolitics,
Geography of World Cultures,
Natural Resources and Population,
Plate Tectonics.

Cooking with Forgotten Classics - podcast review

Mostly Forgotten Classics is about fiction; Julie reads a novel to you. Here is an episode that is about cooking though. The major part of this, rather long, podcast consists of Julie reading from John Thorne's Mouth Wide Open.

I found it the most interesting part where Julie reacted to the content and told how she deals with recipes and how others she knows do. She sees two types of people: those who roughly follow recipes, and make their variations as they go and those who either improvise while cooking, or follow recipes and then follow them rather strictly. In theory there would be people who only cook by recipes and then follow, but nobody seems to know them.

John Thorne explains, among others, in the sections that Julie reads out loud, why he hardly ever cooks from recipes and when he does, he allows himself vast freedom to alternate. His way of dealing with cookbooks, is read them. The recipes are not to be tried, but to be learned from, to give ideas. In addition there are thoughts about traditional cooking, theme cookbooks, cooking magazines and on and on. The reading section is actually too long, I think. And the whole subject, is much more alive when Julie discusses it. I think she could have summarized Thorne's view and made more of a free-style podcast. But hers is a podcast in which she reads to the listener. And this she does very, very well.

More:
Forgotten Classics - podcast review,
Podcast history of cooking,
Anne is a Man - recipes.