5 Podcasts I listened to when I was away from the blog

First of all, allow me to apologize for not posting on the blog for such a long time. Off-line life caught up with me. Issues have still to be resolved, but at least I am back to some blogging again. In the mean time I have also not stopped listening to podcasts and here are 5 podcasts I have faithfully followed up to the last episode.

Geography C110 (Berkeley)
This is a course in economic geography. It kicks off with a lot of interesting history and slowly fades out of geography into economics. I got a comment at the feedback page from a reader thanking me for pointing at this course which he dubbed 'THE econ class' he had been looking for. In the last lecture (Lecture 15: Class Struggle in the U.S.A.: Neoliberalism and Capital Triumphant) it even moves out of economics and shows professor Richard Walker take the liberty of venting his left wing political views. (feed)

History 5 (Berkeley)
Unfortunately a couple of lectures were not properly recorded in this course. As a result we have had a bit of bumpy road from the Enlightenment to the Industrial Revolution, but whatever we did get had professor Laqueur in full swing. There are a bunch of general history courses that cover the last centuries and give an indispensable insight into modernity, but Berkeley's remains the best of them. (feed)

A brief history of mathematics (BBC)
Here is a podcast that I was directed to by a reader of the blog. In ten easy to digest episodes Marcus du Sautoy (whom we have heard also frequently on In Our Time) introduces us to the history of modern mathematics. (feed)

New Books in History
Here is my weekly treat. Marshall Poe interviews authors of recently published history books. Although one might get the impression this podcast jumps back and forth just as the subjects come up, the regular listener can surely discern a couple of themes that have special interest. The recent issue 'Stalin's genocides' fits into both the recurring them of genocide as well as that of modern Russian history and biographies of important political figures. Similarly, the interview with Fred Spier (Big History and the Future of Humanity) fits into a group of issues about meta- and mega-history. And so on. (feed)

Forgotten Classics
Julie Davies reads to you the books that are classics we might have forgotten about. She has now embarked on a most ambitious and titillating project: reading Genesis. This will be of course in English and this opens the door to a whole lot of preemptive deliberating about translation. The translation she has chosen (Robert Alter's translation of Genesis) contains a whole preface addressing the issues the translator faced and explanations and justifications for how he treated it. Julie has begun by reading that preface. (feed)

Break

I am going to be away from the blog for a couple of days.
Apologies to you all
Anne

Heads-up for 6 October 2010

Exploring Environmental History
The draining of the East Anglia Fens: social unrest, design flaws and unintended environmental consequences
This episode examines the history of the Fens of East Anglia in England. The Fens originally consisted of wetlands which have been artificially drained since the Middle Ages and continue to be protected from floods by a system of drains, dams and pumps. Much of this work was carried out during the 17th century. With the support of this drainage and coastal protection system and because of its fertility, the Fens have become a major agricultural region in Britain. The story of the reclamation of the fens is one of social unrest, design flaws, money problems and unintended environmental consequences. The guest on this episode of the podcast is Julie Bowring, a PhD candidate at Yale University and she is in the final stages of writing up a dissertation on the so-called Great Level of the Fens in Cambridgeshire, England
(review, feed)

A Short History of Japan
The Heian Era
The Heian Era is sometimes seen as Japan’s classical era. Great works of art, religious thought and crafty politicians make this era fascinating
(review, feed)

Elucidations, A University of Chicago Podcast
Episode 16: Amartya Sen discusses justice
In this episode, Amartya Sen critiques the idea that in order to make our society more just, we have to model it on an ideal.
(review, feed)

Geography C110 - Berkeley

This lecture course is about history, geography and economics all merged into one didactic presentation and it has me very excited. This is the way I like to be taught history, or economics and geography for that matter. Professor Richard Walker is a captivating, outspoken and effective lecturer who gets the job done very well, time and again. We are talking about the course Geography C110, Economic Geography of the Industrial World at Berkeley, which I have praised before and is being taught again this semester. (feed)

In case you have done some following in previous semesters, you still may consider following again as Walker makes numerous references to what is currently going on in politics and economics. He has a wonderful talent to clarify the interactive mechanics of regions (geography), economics, politics and historic developments. Not only does this make for a very integrated and comprehensive course in modern history - from the industrialization until today. It also explains a lot about what is going on today, whether it is the financial crisis, the rise of China and India (or not), the downfall of Europe and its creature the EU (or not) and the stagnating hegemony of the US as well as failing states and developing states.

The only question I have is: how well does this course work for listeners who do not have a clear view on the historical narrative of modern states and economy, of a map of the world and the specifics of its regions and the mechanics of macro-economics? For me, this course is a beautiful welding of these three separate disciplines into one whole picture. If you are fuzzy on some of the elements, will that help explain more, or will it cause you to drop out and fail to follow what Walker is on about? Can I get some comments on that?

By the way, if you want to see the power points, Walker promises in his first lecture to send them to anyone who applies for it by email to him. walker@berkeley.edu

More Geography c110:
Geography C110 - Berkeley Lecture series 2008.

Also recommended in this respect:
Geography of World Cultures, (review, site:Stanford on iTunes U, feed).
Enhanced podcast (maps are added to the audio) about the spread of languages and religions in the world. We see that the political and cultural boundaries are not the same as the boundaries of language and religion.

Global Geopolitics (review, site:Stanford on iTunes U, feed).
Martin Lewis systematically discusses, in nine lectures, all areas on the globe and disclose the problems in geopolitics. Enhanced podcast (maps are added to the audio).

Geography 130 (Berkeley) Natural Resources and Population (review, site, feed)
Lecture series that explains how our earth is populated, why it is populated the way it is, how we use our resources and in the process we come to understand how the system is strained.

Heads-up for 5 October 2010

Radio Lab (WNYC)
The Walls of Jericho
In this podcast, Jad and Robert throw some physics at a bible story. We find out just how many trumpeters you'd actually need to blow down the walls of Jericho.
(review, feed)

Inspired Minds
One-to-One with author Stuart MacBride
The Scotsman Stuart MacBride has successfully put the city of Aberdeen on the map of crime-writing. His first crime novel with Detective Sergeant Logan McRae and his slightly clumsy yet most endearing unorthodox superior, Detective Inspector Roberta Steel, came out in 2005, and he has been publishing a book a year ever since. In this week’s Inspired Minds Ulrike Sárkány talks to the author about his Aberdeen inspiration, the surprise of his success on the highly competitive crime fiction market and how he likes the reader to decide for themselves just what Detective Sergeant Logan McRae looks like.
(review, feed)

KQED's Forum
Deepak Chopra
Alternative medicine and spirituality advocate Dr. Deepak Chopra has written more than 50 books, including novels about Jesus and Buddha. He joins us to discuss his newest fictional biography, "Muhammad: A Story of the Last Prophet."
(review, feed)

Volkis Stimme
Nicht in Frankfurt
Eine kurze Theaterkritik mit Hilmar, dem Zauberbruder. Ausserdem eine unserer gefürchteten Impro-Einlagen.
(review, feed)

Silent Spring

We have seen a diametrical change of mindset in our life time. We started off by thinking that Nature was huge, robust and inexhaustible, but today many people view Nature as fragile, sensitive, nearly exhausted and in need of protection. We can replace nature in the the previous sentence with Earth or Eco-System, if you like, and improve the accuracy of what has happened, but I think you see what I am driving at. And I recall it from my youth: if you protested against throwing garbage in the river next to our village and said something about pollution, you were laughed at. The whole idea seemed ridiculous, but today there are cleaning systems at work, huge fines for polluting and tremendous social control. It is the same river and it may even be cleaner than thirty years ago, but it is treated fundamentally differently.

Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring is frequently credited to have set this major shift in motion, or at least profoundly contributed to it. If you listen to Witness (BBC), you can hear one of last week's issues (that will soon be taken out of the feed, so hurry with download) that talks with Carson's adopted son and discusses the conception and reception of the work. Carson was among the first to warn the world for fatal pollution of the environment. She was ridiculed and attacked. Today nobody doubts that the environment can be fatally polluted and many think we are very close to doing so and in some realms already have passed that point.

If you look for 'Silent Spring' in iTunes you will find a number of lectures that bear that name and even though they do not directly relate to Carson or her book, they do relate to the subject of it: how pesticides cause irreversible damage to flora and fauna. You can find an old issue of Science & The City that reports how DDT (which Carson warned about) is returning to the scene in 2007 (feed). And in iTunesU is a series from Carnegie Mellon University called Interdisciplinary Collaboration Audio which contains a fine lecture by Tyrone Hayes about the devastating effect of pesticides on amphibians which is a very captivating listen. (feed)

More Witness:
Oslo Accords,
Witness BBC.