The weekly treat: In Our Time

I do not expect that readers of this blog really need a reminder of the excellent weekly podcast of the BBC In Our Time. Each week Melvyn Bragg is joined in the studio by three specialist to talk about various subjects in the history of ideas. Since my last review we have heard about the Dreyfus affair, the death of Elizabeth I and the geological formation of Britain. Tomorrow there will be a new podcast. This time about Schopenauer.

In Our Time has been bringing 45 minutes of sheer intellectual pleasure over the past years. And so, what more is to be said? The BBC and Melvyn Bragg understand the asset they have with IOT and have published the In Our Time book. Although the BBC website presents this as a guide to IOT, is merely a set of transcripts of selected chapters.

As is usual with books these day, teasers can be had over the web and so, you can read a transcript of the episode about calendars. Also in print IOT displays here the wonderful quality it offers in podcast.

More In Our Time:
New season of In Our Time,
St. Thomas Aquinas,
Logical Positivism,
The Sunni - Shia split,
Revenge Tragedy.

Het heelal in een kwartier - Kritisch Denken

Een bijzonder geslaagde aflevering van de sceptische podcast Kritisch Denken vertelde de geschiedenis van het heelal binnen vijftien minuten. Kritisch Denken is een nederlandstalige podcast die merkbaar geinspireerd is op Engelse podcasts zoals onder meer The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe (SGU). (feed)

De maker van Kritisch Denken, de Vlaming Jozef van Giel werkt volgens een vastgelegd script dat op de website is terug te lezen (Het heelal in een notedop). Dat werkt in dit specifieke voorbeeld erg goed en levert de beste inleiding in de astronomie die ik me maar wensen kan. In andere gevallen versnippert het de podcast een weinig en brengt het Van Giel aan het hakkelen.

De podcast is begonnen in Februari 2009 en wie de afleveringen van het begin vergelijkt met die van het eind, kan een zeer positieve ontwikkeling waarnemen. Niet alleen heeft Van Giel het podcasten technisch onder de knie gekregen, maar heeft hij ook het drammerige van sommige andere sceptici weten te vermijden en een sfeer gecreeerd waarin we samen met hem soms ook op zoek zijn naar de kritische balans. Zoals bijvoorbeeld in de podcast over IJsland, waarin onverwachte wendingen worden gegeven aan de vraag wat ecologisch verantwoord leven is.

History of India - UCLA lecture podcast

With great enthusiasm I started a new lecture series at UCLA: History 9A - Introduction to Asian Civilizations: History of India (feed). Not all courses at UCLA are available as free podcasts, but this one is. I call myself lucky.

I have a great interest in the history of India. The fascinations stretches from the earliest of Indus Valley civilizations to modern day India and its neighbors. I have complained in the past that a good history podcast about India was sorely missing and here we are, UCLA meets the challenge. I have gone through the first four or five lectures and so the most I can say is about the early history.

For one, there is the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC). The lecturer, professor Vinay Lal makes it very clear: we have little to go on. We have to rely on archeology, as the script has not been deciphered yet - it is a script Lal assures. The archeological finds are few and far apart and many of those are in Pakistan and this makes for some irony and political contention around everything involved in IVC. And it is not just the Pakistan-India collision that plays in these politics. Also other issues in modern politics are played out in the archeology and interpretation of the Indus Valley Civilizations.

Then, when the IVC leaves the scene, in whatever way, the Aryans arrive and with them the Sanskrit language and the texts that found Hinduism (or should we say Brahmanism?). This, also, is politically laden and so, again, the lectures concentrate very much around the meanings and interpretations of the Sanskrit texts. This is very interesting, but it gives the series, so far, much less the character of a narrative and much more the quality of a lecture on historiography. Nevertheless, those facts that I found so sorely missing in my education, are given and beginning to connect.

Apart from this podcast, I also follow the blog Varnam in order to get a grip on Indian History. Reading Varnam's articles in conjunction with Lal's lectures are a truly enriching experience.

Modern Western History in podcasts

Western civilization in the modern era, that is roughly from the 17th century until the Second World War, is main stream history. There is a lot to be said why other regions and other ages need to be discussed in history in order to understand the world - that goes without saying. However, the most recent history of the most dominant civilization in that history is indispensable for anyone who wants to get a grip on history today. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that this general history is the subject of many podcast series. Here I want to concisely present to you the best university lecture series available.

For a long time, the only and indisputably the best series available was Berkeley's History 5. And this series came in flavors, semesters by different professors, each with their own style, emphasis and qualities for you to choose from. This course takes the history of western civilization from the renaissance until today and you can choose from the series by Thomas Laqueur, Margaret Lavinia Anderson and Carla Hesse. (Laqueur feed), (Anderson feed), (Hesse feed).

Very similar in content and style is UCLA's History 1C which starts in 1750 and also moves on until today. Professor Hunt is just as good as her Berkeley counterparts. (feed)

At UCSD, the era can be taken in the larger series MMW, the Making of the Modern World. What makes MMW decidedly different from others is that it is not exclusively looking at Western Civ. Nevertheless the course MMW 4 by professor Matthew Herbst, which goes from 1200 to 1750 is very good and you might want to take this one to get a head start with the others. I have yet to see MMW 5, but logically this goes on after 1750 and in spite of the added non-Western Civ, this is one to add, as soon as this becomes available. (feed for this semester - will be taken off line by the end of 2009)

A new lecture series comes from Yale by Professor Merriman European Civilization 1648 to 1945 and I am about to take that one on. The introduction is splendid and enhances the appetite. I am also happy this course starts before 1750. Although the Berkeley starting point 1453 (fall of Constantinople) definitely marks the beginning of modern history, the good thing of 1648 is that it is the peace of Westphalia and this results in a map of Western Europe that is very recognizable from today. (feed)

These are the general courses, but there are so many more. There are university podcasts that take on smaller spans of time or theme within this frame. And there are non-university, non-lecture podcasts that are very good.

A new podcast reviewer - thepodcastreview.net

It was just last month when I published a list of podcast reviewers that I know of and whom I follow to keep up. And then, almost simultaneously, a new blog started reviewing podcasts at a rate of at least one podcast a day: The Podcast Review. This blog was already instrumental in letting me find The Short History of Ireland podcast.

The Podcast Review reports on new podcasts on a daily basis. It seems to take on every kind of podcast and then reviews the whole series (not specific episodes, such as I frequently do).

While I am at it, I want to also mention SFF Audio, which is not strictly about podcasts, but rather about audio drama, especially SciFi and Fantasy, whether syndicated or not.

And here is the full list of last month, updated with the two above:

Blogs:
The Podcast Place. A blog that started in December 2008 and tries to review a couple of podcasts per week from all genres.
Daily Podcast Reviews. Is not exactly a daily blog, but every now and then there is a new podcast review. Among the reviewed podcasts are quite a number of the Quick and Dirty series, best known from the podcast Grammar Girl.
The Podcast Review. New podcasts on a daily basis. It seems to take on every kind of podcast and then reviews the whole series (not specific episodes, such as I frequently do).
DIY Scholar. My favorite among these blogs and a recurring source of inspiration is the Do It Yourself Scholar. She reviews many educational podcasts as well as videos, blogs and other free academic content.
Baxter Wood. The re-education of Baxter Wood is the blog of a 62 year old truck driver who takes on academic podcast series and reports about them without links. But he is quite exact in how to google the content.
Marje's favorite history podcasts. A near complete source for history podcast reviews compiled in a bookmarking tool. Marje helped me discover new history podcasts, but it seems, I have helped Marje as well.
Open Culture. The free culture blog by Dan Colman, associate dean of Stanford, which used to bring more podcast reviews than it does today. These days there are more general culture links and many, many videos.
SFF Audio. Not strictly about podcasts, but rather about audio drama, especially SciFi and Fantasy, whether syndicated or not. Apart from a blog, this is also a podcast.

Podcasts:
Edgy Reviews (feed). A weekly podcast that rates a wide variety of podcasts in sets of three.
Podwatch (feed). An Australian podcast review show that has recently been revived.
Historyzine (feed). A history podcast that also reviews history podcasts.
Forgotten Classics (feed). A literature podcast that opens every episode with one or several podcast reviews in various genres.

Pharisees and Sadducees - From Israelite to Jew

The excellent series From Israelite to Jew has its latest chapter named Jesus and other strange Jews and one must be warned in advance: this issue is mostly about Pharisees and Sadducees with a small addition about followers of charismatic Jews such as Jesus.

At the time, that is during the historic period this podcast is discussing here, the followers of Jesus were a distinct group among Jews, but far from one developing into a different religion nor a stream of social and political importance such as the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Therefore it is only right that host Michael Satlow delves into these two groups and attempts to juxtapose them and hardly takes on the others. And the subjects according to which the division is made is around theology (the existence of angels, of free will, of fate, of soul, of afterlife and such) as well as around ritual and the authority to interpret the holy script.

A part of the historic background that would complement this depiction, would be a description of the social economic reality of the time and it seems Satlow is about to embark on such a track. However, he will first of all discuss the major source for this period: the historian Josephus. That will be then ext episode of the podcast. I expect that the title will be much more indicative than it was this time.

More FITJ:
The Dead Sea Scrolls,
Herod the Ambiguous,
Jewish varieties,
Jews in the Hasmonean era,
The Maccabee Uprising.