Headstrong: Women Porters, Blackness, and Modernity in Accra (U Pennsylvania Press, 2025) explores the experiences of women porters, called kayayei, in Accra, Ghana. Drawing on a decade of fieldwork, anthropologist Laurian R. Bowles shows how kayayei navigate precarity, bringing into sharp relief how racialization, rooted in histories of colonialism and ensl ... Show More
Oct 5
Carlotta Daro, "The Architecture of the Wire: Infrastructures of Telecommunication" (MIT Press, 2025)
The Architecture of the Wire explores the development of telecommunications infrastructure and its impact on the architectural and urban culture of the modern age—from poles, wires, and cables, to “micro-architectures,” such as the théâtrophone and the telephone booth. Starting w ... Show More
37m 23s
Sep 30
Georgios Tsourous, "Orthodox Choreographies: Boundaries, Borders and Materiality in Jerusalem's Old City" (Gorgias Press, 2024)
Orthodox Choreographies: Boundaries, Borders and Materiality in Jerusalem's Old City (Gorgias Press, 2024) offers a comprehensive anthropological study of lived Christianity in Jerusalem’s Old City, with a special focus on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre or the Church of the Ana ... Show More
1h 4m
Sep 24
Jacinto Cuvi, "The Edge of the Law: Street Vendors and the Erosion of Citizenship in São Paulo" (U Chicago Press, 2025)
How street vendors tangle with the law in São Paulo, Brazil. With a little initiative and very little startup money, an outgoing individual might sell you a number of delights and conveniences familiar to city dwellers—from cold water bottles while you’re sitting in traffic to a ... Show More
49m 3s
Apr 2024
Philipp Demgenski, "Seeking a Future for the Past: Space, Power, and Heritage in a Chinese City" (U Michigan Press, 2024)
In Seeking a Future for the Past: Space, Power, and Heritage in a Chinese City (U Michigan Press, 2024), Philipp Demgenski examines the complexities and changing sociopolitical dynamics of urban renewal in contemporary China. Drawing on ten years of ethnographic fieldwork in the ... Show More
1h 20m
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 economy ... Show More
51m 8s
Aug 2024
Arif Hasan, "The Search for Shelter: Writings on Land and Housing" (Oxford UP, 2022)
The Search for Shelter: Writings on Land and Housing (Oxford UP, 2022) sheds light on the global population living in slums, which has increased from 1 billion in 2014 to 1.6 billion in 2018. The book also looks at the impact of neoliberalism on urban planning, the manner of orga ... Show More
52m 33s
May 2024
The city-changing magic of wandering around
Guest: Shawn Micallef, contributing columnist and author of “Stroll: Pyschogeographic Walking Tours of Toronto” In 2010, journalist Shawn Micallef first published his book of observations, suggestions and civic history gleaned from years of wandering around the city and paying cl ... Show More
27m 3s
Oct 2023
Smith Mehta, "The New Screen Ecology in India: Digital Transformation of Media" (British Film Institute, 2023)
In The New Screen Ecology in India: Digital Transformation of Media (British Film Institute, 2023), Smith Mehta takes a deep dive into the world of social media platforms and their impact on contemporary film and television production, arguing that they have fundamentally shifte ... Show More
1h 5m
Nov 2023
Andrew Brandel, "Moving Words: Literature, Memory, and Migration in Berlin" (U Toronto Press, 2023)
In the decades since the fall of the Berlin Wall, Berlin has re-emerged as a global city in large part thanks to its reputation as a literary city – a place where artists from around the world gather and can make a life. Moving Words: Literature, Memory, and Migration in Berlin ( ... Show More
49m 21s
Apr 2024
What’s the future for cities in the postpandemic world?
Co-host Janet Bush talks with Ed Glaeser, the Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics and the chairman of the Department of Economics at Harvard University. His latest book, coauthored with health economist David Cutler, is Survival of the city: The future of urban life in ... Show More
37m 4s
Jul 2022
Ghassan Hage, "The Diasporic Condition: Ethnographic Explorations of the Lebanese in the World" (U Chicago Press, 2021)
Bridging the gap between migration studies and the anthropological tradition, Ghassan Hage illustrates that transnationality and its attendant cultural consequences are not necessarily at odds with classic theory.In The Diasporic Condition, Ghassan Hage engages with the diasporic ... Show More
50m 12s