A three-thousand-year history of the Yellow River and the legacy of interactions between humans and the natural landscape From Neolithic times to the present day, the Yellow River and its watershed have both shaped and been shaped by human society. Using the Yellow River to illustrate the long-term effects of environmentally significant human activity, Ruth ... Show More
Yesterday
Joe P. L. Davidson, "Saving Utopia: Imagining Hopeful Futures in Dystopian Times" (MIT Press, 2026)
There is no alternative. The End of History. Climate Apocalypse. It seems that our contemporary moment is defined by the idea that things can only get worse or, in the most optimistic reading, perhaps stay as they are. Ideas for things getting better, utopian ideas, seem in short ... Show More
1h 4m
Jun 16
Robert Suits, "The Hobo: A History of America's First Climate Migrants" (Princeton UP, 2026)
From the mid-nineteenth century through the dust bowl years of the Great Depression, a new kind of migrant worker became a familiar sight in communities across America. The Hobo: A History of America's First Climate Migrants (Princeton UP, 2026) by Dr. Robert Suits traces the jou ... Show More
58m 20s
Jun 13
Patrick Brodie, "Wild Tides: Media Infrastructure and Financial Crisis in Ireland" (Duke UP, 2026)
In Wild Tides: Media Infrastructure and Financial Crisis in Ireland (Duke University Press, 2026), Patrick Brodie maps the shifting fortunes of the Irish economy before the 2008 financial crisis up to 2020, outlining how the Irish state moved from rampant and irresponsible financ ... Show More
1h 15m
Oct 2019
Jennifer L. Derr, "The Lived Nile: Environment, Disease, and Material Colonial Economy in Egypt" (Stanford UP, 2019)
In October 1902, the reservoir of the first Aswan Dam filled, and Egypt's relationship with the Nile River forever changed. Flooding villages of historical northern Nubia and filling the irrigation canals that flowed from the river, the perennial Nile not only reshaped agricultur ... Show More
53m 53s
Sep 2023
The Tale of Two Cities: Water Access Influences Human Decision Making
Does our geographical location shape our thinking? Does water access have an effect on our decision-making habits? Do we choose to live in the moment because of environmental factors? In this episode, Under the Cortex hosts Dr. Hamid Harati, The University of Queensland, and Thom ... Show More
27m 43s
May 2023
Colin Hoag, "The Fluvial Imagination: On Lesotho’s Water-Export Economy" (U California Press, 2022)
Landlocked and surrounded by South Africa on all sides, the mountain kingdom of Lesotho became the world's first "water-exporting country" when it signed a 1986 treaty with its powerful neighbor. An elaborate network of dams and tunnels now carries water to Johannesburg, the subc ... Show More
59m 23s
Sep 2023
What makes a healthy river?
River health has captured the public imagination, particularly as overspills from sewers have been getting more attention in the media. But the condition of a river is so much more complicated than what flows into it from our water treatment systems. Agriculture, roads, how we us ... Show More
36m 11s
Oct 2019
Ann Elias, "Coral Empire: Underwater Oceans, Colonial Tropics, Visual Modernity" (Duke UP, 2019)
With the threats of sea water warming and ocean acidification, coral reefs have become both a fire alarm and a barometer for the dangers of human induced climate change. We now face the possibility of a world without coral. In this cogent and timely work, Ann Elias interrogates h ... Show More
45m 52s