Today
Eleanor Gordon et al., "Working-Class Courtship, Marriage, and Divorce in Scotland, 1855–1939" (Oxford UP, 2025)
Working-Class Courtship, Marriage, and Divorce in Scotland, 1855–1939 (Oxford UP, 2025) by Professor Eleanor Gordon, Professor Katie Barclay, and Dr. Jeff Meeks is the first book-length study of the history of working-class courtship and marriage in Scotland, from the establishme ... Show More
1h 4m
Yesterday
Michael James Roberts et al., "Roll and Flow: The Cultural Politics of Skateboarding and Surfing" (San Diego State UP, 2024)
In Roll and Flow: The Cultural Politics of Skateboarding and Surfing (San Diego State UP, 2024), Michael James Roberts, Kristin Lawler, and David P. Cline take the widespread participation of skateboarders and surfers in the Black Lives Matter movement as a catalyst to reconsider ... Show More
1 h
Yesterday
Jennifer Randles, "Living Diaper to Diaper: The Hidden Crisis of Poverty and Motherhood" (U California Press, 2026)
Many of us take diapers for granted. Yet diaper insecurity is a common, often hidden consequence of poverty in the US, where nearly half of American families with young children struggle to get enough diapers. Drawing on interviews with mothers dealing with this overlooked issue, ... Show More
41m 27s
Jun 2024
Cameron Bailey and Aleksandra Wenta, "Tibetan Magic: Past and Present" (Bloomsbury, 2024)
Tibetan Magic: Past and Present (Bloomsbury, 2024) focuses on the theme of magic in Tibetan contexts, encompassing both pre-modern and modern text-cultures as well as contemporary practices. It offers a new understanding of the identity and role of magical specialists in both his ... Show More
46m 6s
Nov 2024
Ghosts, death and ecstatic states
With Day of the Dead, Halloween and All Souls Day being marked in different countries around the world - Shahidha Bari's guests discuss the belief in ghosts and the search for meaning in mysticism. They are:Dr Chris Harding is a cultural historian of Japan, India and East-West co ... Show More
57m 10s
Feb 2025
Magic, Death, and Necromancy with Justin McDaniel
**Warning: This episode contains potentially disturbing content!**
On this episode of the Black Beryl, I sit down with Justin McDaniel, a scholar of Theravada Buddhist literature and art. Together we explore the darker side of Thai Buddhism, including meditation on decomposing bo ... Show More
56m 39s
Aug 2024
The Dragon and the Nguzunguzu
Nguzunguzu is the traditional figurehead which was formerly affixed to canoes in the Solomon Islands. In this episode, Julie Yu-Wen Chen talks to Rodolfo Maggio, a senior researcher at the University of Helsinki about his book project on the dragon and the nguzunguzu, namely the ... Show More
20m 8s
Dec 2022
Stevie Suan, "Anime's Identity: Performativity and Form Beyond Japan" (U Minnesota Press, 2021)
A formal approach to anime rethinks globalization and transnationality under neoliberalism Anime has become synonymous with Japanese culture, but its global reach raises a perplexing question--what happens when anime is produced outside of Japan? Who actually makes anime, and how ... Show More
58m 38s
Feb 2025
Jaqueline Berndt, "The Cambridge Companion to Manga and Anime" (Cambridge UP, 2024)
In recent years, manga and anime have attracted increasing scholarly interest beyond the realm of Japanese studies. This Companion takes a unique approach, committed to exploring both the similarities and differences between these two distinct but interrelated media forms. Firmly ... Show More
42 m
May 2024
Episode 130, 'The Dialectics of Nothingness' with Gregory S. Moss and Takeshi Morisato (Part I - The Kyoto School)
<p class="">In the early part of the twentieth century, three thinkers – Nishida Kitarō, Tanabe Hajime, and Nishitani Keiji – founded the Kyoto School of Philosophy, a group of scholars working at the intersection of Japanese and European thought. The Kyoto School, deeply influen ... Show More
40m 42s
Mar 2023
Timothy O. Benedict, "Spiritual Ends: Religion and the Heart of Dying in Japan" (U California Press, 2022)
Timothy Benedict’s Spiritual Ends: Religion and the Heart of Dying in Japan (U California Press, 2023) is an exploration of spiritual care in the context of the Japanese hospice. The book is rooted in Benedict’s experience as a hospice chaplain in Japan and his extensive fieldwor ... Show More
1h 18m
Apr 2024
Paul Hansen, "Hokkaido Dairy Farm: Cosmopolitics of Otherness and Security on the Frontiers of Japan" (SUNY Press, 2024)
As an ethnography of a Japanese dairy farm while having theoretical values going beyond the specific context, Hokkaido Dairy Farm: Cosmopolitics of Otherness and Security on the Frontiers of Japan (SUNY Press, 2024) offers a historical and ethnographic examination of the rapid in ... Show More
49m 8s
In Japan, a country popularly perceived as highly secularized and technologically advanced, ontological assumptions about spirits (tama or tamashii) seem to be quite deeply ingrained in the cultural fabric. From ancestor cults to anime, spirits, ghosts, and other invisible dimensions of reality appear to be pervasive. In Spirits and Animism in Contemporary J ... Show More
