Defining Environmental History (2) - EEH podcast

In the Environmental History Podcast a second interview was produced that addressed the question of how to define the field of environmental history. Host Jan Oosthoek spoke with Paul Warde (mp3) about this.

Warde opposes environmental history to main stream history in such that regular history is more busy with culture and society, that is the humanly constructed world. Environmental history on the other hand is engaged with the physical world. That this implies influence from a wide variety of other disciplines, could be a strength in his eyes. As long is the broad field is not going to bland itself down by sticking to some common denominator.

In his eyes, the variety of methods, data and scientific perspectives have a moral task and this sort of suggests there IS a common denominator. This would be the environmentalist concern. In this sense Warde holds a view different from previous guest, Donald Worster, who wishes to see the field detached from the political agenda, even if the practitioners subscribe to that. I wonder whether the blanding effect Warde sees in a common denominator, may also be at work in a field of environmental history that would represent a branch of social activism.

NB: In the mean time I have found out that Donald Worster was also interviewed on New Books In History. I am listening to that podcast right now and will embody my thoughts in the upcoming combined review of NBIH episodes.

More Environmental History:
Defining Environmental History - Donald Worster,
Natural Disasters,
Canada and New Zealand,
Environmental history,
Climate Change in recent history.

Iran news evaluation - Pods and Blogs

Among all the one-liners on Twitter and the videos on YouTube - how do you weed out the real news from Iran and decide what is reliable and newsworthy and what is not? BBC's Pods and Blogs is the podcast to tackle this question. (feed)

Pods and Blogs is the program about the forefront of modern media. Channels like Twitter and YouTube have proved before that they are the fastest deliverers of news on great confusions such as the Mumbai attacks and the earthquake in China. Especially what facts the authorities try to steer the public away from, can be found on Twitter, blogs, YouTube and Web2.0 on the whole. Pods and Blogs has been reporting on that forever. Now for the selection of news.

Pods and Blogs's Jamilah interviews on-line editors about their methods to select from the unorganized multitude of sources on the web. What struck me was the way a contact is established. Not the first item is taken from one source, but rather a typical social web connection is built and on the basis of developed trust, the material is taken seriously. A bottom-line for Iran appears to be that the uprising is not against the regime, but more so against the style of authority. The protests are against the lies, the repression, the state control, not necessarily against policies.

More Pods and Blogs:
Pods and Blogs podcast review.

Van Iran tot Spa - OVT podcast recensie

Wekelijks kan je de gehele uitzending van VPRO's OVT in twee podcasts van een uur ophalen. In het verleden deed ik dat om de serie In Europa te volgen en ik pik ook af en toe een uitzending mee vanwege een van de onderwerpen, ditmaal was dat Iran. Daarnaast ging het, onder meer, ook over Cornelis Kraijenhof en Spa. Een van de lezers van mijn blog klaagde al eens dat in OVT teveel geleuterd wordt en het gevaar zit er inderdaad in. Ook hier.

Desalniettemin kan de aflevering ons, met twee Iraanse gasten, wel iets meer achtergrond en historisch perspectief op Iran geven dan de gemiddelde media doen. Het beeld dat naar voren komt is dat van twee stromingen binnen de Islamitische revolutie die nu op bloedige wijze om dominantie vechten. Dat daarbij van volkswoede gebruikt wordt gemaakt is in de Iraanse geschiedenis al meer voorgekomen. Het is een verhaal van een eeuw omwentelingen.

Voordat de uitzending eindigt met Het Spoor Terug over de geschiedenis van Spa, is er een interessant item over Cornelis Kraijenhof, dat een aardig inkijkje biedt in de politieke subtiliteiten die de overgang van de achttiende naar de negentiende eeuw vergezelden. Kraijenhof wordt daarin neergezet als politiek misschien wat naief. Hij zou meer een man van leger en wetenschap geweest zijn, maar ik kon wel met hem meegaan. Ik snapte de combinatie wel van waardering voor de Franse revolutie met de wens om zich militair tegen de Franse overheersing te verzetten.

Meer OVT:
Mata Hari en andere executies,
Hoeren en Agenten,
1943 en meer In Europa.

History of Marriage - Wise Counsel

Wise Counsel is a psychology podcast in which Dr. David van Nuys interviews a wide variety of researchers and practitionners in the world of psychology and pyschotherapy. The sponsor of the podcast is Mentalhelp.net a website about mental health education and research. As such the podcast serves as high quality audio content on the web.

The latest edition consists of an interview with Kristin Celello about the history of Marriage. Celello is an exceptional guest on the program since she is a historian and not a psychologisty or psychiatrist. However, her research on marriage, divorce and the emergence of marriage counseling makes her befitting the podcast. Marriage counseling has been
the subject before (Marriage maintenance) and the historical perspective brings a refreshing perspective with new insights.

I recommend anybody who wants to hear Celello, also to listen to her appearance on another interview podcast: New Books in History. Celello's research shows how the definitions of marriage, success in marriage and proper marriage counseling have developed and consequently resulted in shifts within the phenomena of divorce, marriage advice in media and the profession of marriage counselor.

More:
Kristin Celello and others New Books in History,
Self-help with PTSD on Wise Counsel,
Wise Counsel - psychology podcast review,
Irvin Yalom on Wise Counsel,
Getting together and staying together (Wise Counsel).

The nightmare of lice - a history of pandemics

The series עושים היסטוריה! עם רן לוי (Making History with Ran Levi) had yet another excellent edition. For a moment I thought Ran Levi had surpassed his regular level of humorous remarks, by calling the podcast episode about pandemics 'The greatest nightmare of lice'. Like it is bad news for lice when mankind is struck by a lethal pandemic.

Obviously he relates the history of the Black Plague. Interestingly, this podcast came out in the same week cases of plague were reported from Lybia. This germ is not dead yet. Nowadays we know better how to deal with it, but at the time it did in a huge proportion of the early urbanized Europe of the Middle Ages. And so we move on to virus.

Based on sheer numbers, the Spanish Flu of 1919 was more lethal than the Black Plague, yet the Black Plague is engraved in our minds as the pinnacle of pandemics. More so also than Typhus and this is where the louse's nightmare kicks in. Typhus is conveyed by lice and before it hits man, it kills the louse. Even if this undermines a bit of the wit, the narration is excellent as usual. A perfect podcast.

More Making History with Ran Levi:
Surviving the atom bomb,
Robert Heinlein,
Diamond Rain and other phenomena,
Blood,
Myths and pseudo-knowledge.

Morality in Politics - BBC Reith Lectures

On the BBC Reith Lectures 2009, Michael Sandel tries to make a case for allowing morality to be relevant in the political discourse. I find that refreshing. Morality seems to be generally regarded as something to avoid in debate. I think this is the ultimate result of moral relativism: morality is too subjective to be open for discussion. The greatest loss there seems twofold, not only have important, moral, issues - as Sandel also argues - been taken out of the public debate and left undecided, I fear it has also made the whole discussion more difficult than ever. We have lost touch with ways to debate morality, lost the terms, the ways and the language.

And so, it is truly exciting to enter the second in the series of Reith Lectures and find Sandel attempting to show the relevance of morality in politics. Regretfully, this lecture was tad less powerful. The multitude of examples was difficult to cope with. The cognitive leaps, the conceptual construct were harder to grasp.

Nevertheless, the series is of eminent quality and importance. It is a pleasure to listen in and a great good the lectures are available on podcast.

More Michael Sandel:
Reith Lecture one,
Michael Sandel on Philosophy Bites.