Heads-up for 4 October 2010

The History of Rome
111- Phase One Complete
After the Battle of Abrittus, Trebonianus Gallus was proclaimed Emperor. After reigning for two years he was ousted by Aemilianus, who lasted less than a month on the throne before being ousted by Valerian.
(review, feed)

Here is a tip that has also been put forward by the DIY Scholar: check out the content of the UChannel podcast. This is a podcast that aggregates academic lecture from a wide series of institutions. Almost invariably you get here excellent content from the best people in their fields that share their insight. Unfortunately this podcast is going to podfade on November 3rd. So this is the time to pull up its great content while you still can.
(review, feed)

A History of the World in 100 Objects (BBC)
AHOW: 086 Asante Drum 4 Oct 2010
An 18th century drum from Africa. Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum, examines an African drum that was taken to America during the slave trade and later brought to England by the physician and collector Hans Sloane. He looks at how these African drums were to profoundly influence American culture. With contributions by historian Anthony Appiah and writer Bonnie Greer.
(review, feed)

In Our Time is back again

In case you had not noticed yet, here is to let you know that BBC's In Our Time is back. This is a podcast that is universally regarded as one of the most interesting and worth to follow productions around. Melvyn Bragg speaks every week for 45 minutes with assorted specialists on a subject in the history of ideas. There is hardly a better way thinkable to get a handle on an important topic than getting it on a silver platter through In Our Time. (feed)

The listener needs to be warned though: issues of In Our Time are only available as a podcast in the week immediately after its publication. After that it will only be available on line as a stream. It is therefore my advice to take a subscription, download each issue as it comes out and keep it for listening.

In Our Time also gives fantastic complementary listening to academic or other podcasts that cover the same topic. For example, next week the subject will be the Spanish Armada and in case we may expect that the focus will be either on Spain or England, it will be nice to also listen to the Irish perspective as can be found in the podcast Hidden Heritage.

More In Our Time:
The Indian Rebellion of 1857,
Frankfurt School,
The history of the Royal Society,
The weekly treat,
New season of In Our Time.

Heads-up for 3 October 2010

Tapestry (CBC)
Jill Bolte Taylor
Jill Bolte Taylor is a brain scientist who had a stroke at the age of 37. The injury to her brain caused her to temporarily lose the ability to talk, read and write. But it gave her a new understanding of human consciousness, and of her own place in the universe. Today, Taylor has fully recovered. She tells her story in the book, My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey, and in a much-watched video.
(review, feed and Jill Bolte Taylor on Anne is a Man!)

Wise Counsel Podcast
Sharon Rivkin - Arguments
Sharon Rivkin, a Marriage and Family Therapist and author of Breaking the Argument Cycle, argues that in most cases, repetitive conflict within a relationship occurs when partners' deep-seated family-of-origin issues cause them to misinterpret one another's behavior as more of a personal attack than it really is. Ms. Rivkin's central insight is that a couple's first argument, usually still vividly remembered but distant enough in time to be objective about, is a fertile laboratory for unpacking and identifying what the core issues driving conflict are. To break out of a repetitive argument cycle, partners must become aware of their individual root issues underlying their arguments and then use this knowledge to become more compassionate towards themselves and their partner.
(review, feed)

Radio Open Source
John Mearsheimer: Why does a smart country act so stupid?
When Barack Obama delivered his defining “dumb war” denunciation of war against Iraq in October, 2002, he was a state senator standing in at Chicago’s first big anti-war rally for the invited keynoter, John Mearsheimer, who’d been booked elsewhere.
(review, feed)

Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean
Jesus and his Mentor, John the Baptizer
Here I consider evidence from Josephus and the Gospels regarding John the Baptist and his importance for studying the historical Jesus. This is part of series 5 (The Historical Jesus in Context) of the Religions of the Ancient Mediterranean podcast.
(review, feed)

Roma History - Rear Vision

Rear Vision is always a good source for short informative programs about recent history. In the past month it reported about the history of the Roma and it gave some beginning of an understanding about the gypsy people's history recent as well as longer ago.  (feed)

It left also some questions open. When you learn from the program that the origins of the Roma apparently lie in India and they manage to track their migration from India, through Turkey to Europe in time, it made me wonder about their own version of their history. And also about their language, customs and religion. How much of the origins remained and how much was picked up through the migratory ages?

What became somewhat more clear is how this migrating populace, while moving into new territory remained separate and were pushed into a segregated existence. It also made clear how this segregation continued in recent history even if it took on a different form in Eastern from Western Europe.

More Rear Vision:
History of Pakistan,
Israel's Nuclear Program,
Kashmir,
UK Elections - recommended podcasts,
Two podcast issues on the history of Haiti.

Tony Blair - Forum Network

Maybe I should start by explaining I follow a great deal more podcasts than I listen to. I like to be subscribed in my RSS reader of choice and simply browse through the titles in order to know what is going on in the feed. I will give a quick listen left or right, but that kind of browsing does not frequently lead to reviewing. And so, it could happen, that I had been following the podcast Forum-Network for years without ever reviewed it. So here is a first. (feed)

I would want to recommend to you, listening to the issue of 16 September, in which Tina Brown interviews Tony Blair about his political life, which is also the title of the book Blair recently published: My Political Life. Brown seems to be off with too much praise for a good interview. And for a moment I felt this podcast would, yet again, not be reviewed as it could not manage to keep me engaged. Yet, soon enough, Brown drops the sweetening up and builds some challenging interrogation for the former prime minister.

Blair, in turn, avoids that common pitfall for politicians in interviews to just cough up standardized, evasive and non-committal answers that make politician interviews frequently so irritatingly tedious and unimaginative. Maybe it is his elevated skill and maybe it is the circumstance of his retirement from British politics that he can simply afford to be more candid about his career as a Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. By all means, I was fascinated and listened in suspense while he told about the details of how his politics worked and especially about his cooperation with Clinton and with Bush afterwards.

Note that on the site, you can even watch the interview. I listened of course to the audio which is podcast.

432 podcasts reviewed on Anne is a Man

Today I will be updating my podcast list. Here you can find all the podcast titles that were reviewed on this blog with a link to the latest review. There are 432 in total.

I am still not at the two posts a day rhythm I want to achieve. The Jewish High Holidays very much came in the way. In the coming month my day job is bound to draw me away from the blog, but I keep on trying.