Yesterday
Kimberley Johnson, "Dark Concrete: Black Power Urbanism and the American Metropolis" (Cornell UP, 2025)
Dark Concrete: Black Power Urbanism and the American Metropolis (Cornell UP, 2025) by Dr. Kimberley Johnson is about how the Black Power movement reshaped urban politics in the United States—from expectations to practices. Although the national and international dimensions of the ... Show More
49m 40s
Jan 22
Lauren D. Sawyer, "Growing Up Pure: White Girls, Queer Teens, and the Racial Foundations of Purity Culture" (NYU Press, 2025)
Gaining mass popularity in the mid-1990s with the True Love Waits rally on the Washington Mall, purity culture began as an urge from evangelical conservatives for Christian adolescents to publicly commit to practicing abstinence until marriage. Throughout this decade and the next ... Show More
44m 5s
Jan 20
Robert Dorschel, "The Social Codes of Tech Workers: Class Identity in Digital Capitalism" (MIT Press, 2025)
Who are the people staffing the digital economy? In The Social Codes of Tech Workers: Class Identity in Digital Capitalism (MIT Press, 2025) Robert Dorschel an Assistant Professor in Digital Sociology at the University of Cambridge, explores an occupation that has emerged as cen ... Show More
40m 31s
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 2m
Nov 2017
Me, My Selfie and I: Self-Expression in the Digital Age
We are living in the age of selfie mania. Everyone from the Pope to Obama has appeared in one. In the past, only a handful of people were able to propagate their own images, whether it was artists like Rembrandt or Van Gogh painting self-portraits, society beauties commissioning ... Show More
1h 1m
Nov 2022
Emily J. H. Contois and Zenia Kish, "Food Instagram: Identity, Influence, and Negotiation" (U Illinois Press, 2022)
Image by image and hashtag by hashtag, Instagram has redefined the ways we relate to food. Emily J. H. Contois and Zenia Kish’s edited book Food Instagram: Identity, Influence, and Negotiation (published by the University of Illinois Press in 2022) explore the massively popular s ... Show More
49m 48s
Sep 2023
Rahul Ranjan, "The Political Life of Memory: Birsa Munda in Contemporary India" (Cambridge UP, 2023)
How do affective sites such as memorials and statues produce political visions, emotions, and opportunities? And how are they used strategically to further particular political projects? In this episode, we discuss these questions with Rahul Ranjan with specific reference to his ... Show More
33m 12s
Mar 2024
Fran Martin, "Dreams of Flight: The Lives of Chinese Women Students in the West" (Duke UP, 2021)
Dreams of Flight: The Lives of Chinese Women Students in the West (Duke UP, 2021) explores the significance of transnational educational mobility in the life aspirations of young, middle-class Chinese women. Based on extensive, long-term ethnographic research, Fran Martin explore ... Show More
1h 31m
Nov 6
Memes in Morocco: Darija, Rap & Digital Activism | Dr Cristina Moreno Almeida
<p>We explore why certain cultural productions thrive exclusively online, the debate around meme humor versus emotional resonance, and how memes can serve as a form of social critique. Dr. Cristina Moreno Almeida, from Queen Mary University of London, joins us and discusses her r ... Show More
53m 39s
Mar 2025
Hemangini Gupta, "Experimental Times: Startup Capitalism and Feminist Futures in India" (U California Press, 2024)
Experimental Times: Startup Capitalism and Feminist Futures in India (U California Press, 2024) is an in-depth ethnography of the transformation of Bengaluru/Bangalore from a site of "backend" IT work to an aspirational global city of enterprise and innovation. The book journeys ... Show More
39m 59s
Aug 2024
Jessica Roda, "For Women and Girls Only: Reshaping Jewish Orthodoxy Through the Arts in the Digital Age" (NYU Press, 2024)
Mainstream portrayals of ultra-Orthodox religious women often frame their faith as oppressive: they are empowered only when they leave their community. For Women and Girls Only: Reshaping Jewish Orthodoxy Through the Arts in the Digital Age (NYU Press, 2024), by Jessica Roda, fli ... Show More
1h 5m
Oct 10
Navigating Meme Culture: From Brain Rot to Digital Monoculture | Dr. Idil Galip
<p>"Brain rot" as "trashy media for the algorithmic age", the political implications of memes, the differences in global meme cultures, and the impact of AI on the content we receive and share. Dr. Idil Galip is a lecturer in New Media and Digital Culture at the University of Ams ... Show More
56m 27s
Selfies are more than fleeting images—across India, they shape how people imagine themselves, connect with others, and inhabit spaces.
In this episode of the Nordic Asia Podcast, Prof. Xenia Zeiler from the University of Helsinki talks to Prof. Avishek Ray about his co-authored book Digital Expressions of the Self(ie): The Social Life of Selfies in India. T ... Show More
