Handcrafted Careers: Working the Artisan Economy of Craft Beer (U California Press, 2024) unpacks the problems and privileges of pursuing a career of passion by exploring work inside craft breweries.
As workers attempt new modes of employment in the era of the Great Resignation, they face a labor landscape that is increasingly uncertain and stubbornly unequa ... Show More
Apr 2025
Amy Zhang, "Circular Ecologies: Environmentalism and Waste Politics in Urban China" (Stanford UP, 2024)
After four decades of reform and development, China is confronting a domestic waste crisis. As the world's largest waste-generating nation, the World Economic Forum projects that by 2030, the volume of household waste in China will be double that of the United States. Starting in ... Show More
1h 7m
Yesterday
Sarah Hoiland, "Righteous Sisterhood: The Politics and Power of an All-Women's Motorcycle Club" (Temple UP, 2025)
A righteous sister identifies herself as a biker. She might wrench, or maintain, her own bike, and she prefers to ride with other righteous sisters. Righteous Sisterhood: The Politics and Power of an All-Women's Motorcycle Club (Temple UP, 2025) is Dr. Sarah Hoiland’s insightful ... Show More
44m 53s
Nov 19
Christina Jerne, "Opposition by Imitation: The Economics of Italian Anti-Mafia Activism" (U Minnesota Press, 2025)
For more than 150 years, Italy has been home to a resilient and evolving resistance against the pervasive influence of mafias. While these criminal organizations are renowned for their vast international business enterprises, the collective actions taken to oppose them are less k ... Show More
56m 40s
Sep 2024
Eli Revelle Yano Wilson, "Handcrafted Careers: Working the Artisan Economy of Craft Beer" (U California Press, 2024)
Handcrafted Careers: Working the Artisan Economy of Craft Beer (U California Press, 2024) unpacks the problems and privileges of pursuing a career of passion by exploring work inside craft breweries.
As workers attempt new modes of employment in the era of the Great Resignation, ... Show More
49m 16s
Sep 2024
Ellen T. Meiser, "Making It: Success in the Commercial Kitchen" (Rutgers UP, 2024)
The restaurant industry is one of the few places in America where workers from lower-class backgrounds can rise to positions of power and prestige. Yet with over four million cooks and food-preparation workers employed in America’s restaurants, not everyone makes it to the high-s ... Show More
44m 54s
Dec 2024
Carrie M. Lane, "More Than Pretty Boxes: How the Rise of Professional Organizing Shows Us the Way We Work Isn't Working" (U Chicago Press, 2024)
This study of organizing and decluttering professionals helps us understand—and perhaps alleviate—the overwhelming demands society places on our time and energy.
For a widely dreaded, often mundane task, organizing one’s possessions has taken a surprising hold on our cultural ima ... Show More
38m 43s
Jun 2023
David A. Banks, "The City Authentic: How the Attention Economy Builds Urban America" (U California Press, 2023)
The City Authentic: How the Attention Economy Builds Urban America (U California Press, 2023) is the first book to explore how our cities gentrify by becoming social media influencers—and why it works.
Cities, like the people that live in them, are subject to the attention econom ... Show More
48m 23s
Oct 23
Joanna Woronkowicz, "Artists at Work: Rethinking Policy for Artistic Careers" (Stanford UP, 2025)
What does it mean to be an artist? In Artists At Work: Rethinking Policy for Artistic Careers (Stanford UP, 2025) Joanna Woronkowicz, the co-founder of the Center for Cultural Affairs and co-director of the Arts, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Lab at Indiana University Bloomingt ... Show More
40m 18s
Jun 2023
Erik Kojola, "Mining the Heartland: Nature, Place, and Populism on the Iron Range" (NYU Press, 2023)
On an unseasonably warm October afternoon in Saint Paul, hundreds of people gathered to protest the construction of a proposed copper-nickel mine in the rural northern part of their state. The crowd eagerly listened to speeches on how the project would bring long-term risks and p ... Show More
28m 28s
Oct 2024
Lisa-Jo K. Van den Scott, "Walled-In: Arctic Housing and a Sociology of Walls" (Lexington Book, 2024)
Walls profoundly shape the spaces we live in and the places we move through, impinge on our everyday lives, and entangle power relations, identity, and hierarchies. Walled-In: Arctic Housing and a Sociology of Walls (Lexington Books, 2024) explores these effects in the context of ... Show More
53m 30s
Jan 2025
State of the Union
Mike Rowe is an Emmy award-winning TV host, producer, narrator, podcaster, spokesman, bestselling author, and advocate for the skilled trades. As the creator and host of DIRTY JOBS, he explored over 350 vocations across all 50 states, celebrating the grit and ingenuity of the Ame ... Show More
2h 37m
Dec 2024
Stacy Torres, "At Home in the City: Growing Old in Urban America" (U California Press, 2025)
To understand elders' experiences of aging in place, sociologist Stacy Torres spent five years with longtime New York City residents as they coped with health setbacks, depression, gentrification, financial struggles, the accumulated losses of neighbors, friends, and family, and ... Show More
1h 7m
Dec 2024
Stacy Torres, "At Home in the City: Growing Old in Urban America" (U California Press, 2025)
To understand elders' experiences of aging in place, sociologist Stacy Torres spent five years with longtime New York City residents as they coped with health setbacks, depression, gentrification, financial struggles, the accumulated losses of neighbors, friends, and family, and ... Show More
1h 7m