New podcasts in October 2009 - Anne is a Man

First of all, in October we have had Blog Action Day 2009 during which 31000 blog posts about Climate Change were published all on October 15th. My own contribution can be reread under the #BAD09 tag.

In addition, there were ten podcasts that I reviewed for the first time:

History Podcasts:
Short History of Ireland (BBC) (review, site, feed)
Very charming daily podcast taking the listener through the history of Ulster and Eire in 5 minute issues.

Norman Centuries (review, site, feed)
The comeback of history podcast veteran Lars Brownworth. This series will tell us the history of the Normans.

European Civilization 1648 to 1945 (Yale) (review, site, feed)
General modern western history lecture series by Professor John Merriman.

History of India (UCLA) (review, site, feed)
Lecture series by Professor Vinay Lal taking us through Indian History from Indus Valley civilization to the modern day.

Other podcasts:
Husserl (review, site, feed)
Lecture series by John Drabinsky about Edmund Husserl, put in feed by Anne is a Man.

Political Economic and Social Thought (University of Wisconsin) (review, site, feed)
Political Science introduction from 25 years ago by Professor Charles W. Anderson

Laura Speaks Dutch (review, site, feed)
Straightforward language learning podcast, teaching you Dutch phrases and basic grammar.

Oorsmeer (VPRO) (review, site, feed)
(in Dutch) Satirisch nieuwsprogramma.

Kritisch Denken (review, site, feed)
(in Dutch) Sceptische podcast van de Vlaming Jozef van Giel.

Deutsche Klassiker (Deutsche Welle) (review, site, feed)
(in German) German Classics read to you by excellent readers.

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The binding of Isaac reconstructed

Today, I have decided, I will skip writing a podcast review. This doesn't mean I will take a break - there is actually a long playlist awaiting me and a lot of listening time is planned. The schedule leaves very little room from writing. Frequently I have posts pre-written, but the ones I have now, are not fit for today, but rather later on.

I do not wish to leave you without posts, however and so I want to entertain you with a video from YouTube that was forwarded to me. I hope it will please you as much as it pleased me.

Michael Sandel - LSE / UChannel

Have you also enjoyed Michael Sandel on the BBC Reith Lectures 2009? It made me crave being in class when Sandel teaches and it turns out that that is now possible for a brief moment. Albeit after the fact, but still.

Sandel was invited to speak at the London School of Economics on his subject that also was central in the Reith Lectures: The Moral Limits of Markets. This can be heard on the LSE Podcast and has been republished also at the UChannel Podcast. Usually these podcasts are one way lectures, at best with a question and answer session at the end, but Sandel's appearance takes on the character of a class. From the beginning he interacts with the audience and on the spot pushes them to explore moral issues with markets. This is exactly what I had imagined how it would be to study with him.

Just as in the Reith Lectures, Sandel shows how the current market thinking allows for turning anything into a commodity and if we feel something is wrong there, it is hard to get a grip on that intuition. Is it wrong to turn to commodity health services? Prisons? Warfare? Carbon Dioxide emissions? Refugee quota? Could you take options on certain occurrences, such as a celebrity's death or terrorist attacks? Sandel's contribution to the discussion is the analysis of the intuition. He shows that aside from market freedom, also principles of justice and morality play a role.

More Michael Sandel:
A new politics of the common good,
The bioethics concern,
Morality in Politics,
Morality and the Market,
Michael Sandel - Philosophy Bites.

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.