Jul 27
Matthew Ritger, "Houses of Correction: Carceral Institutions and Humanist Culture in Early Modern England" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2026)
Today’s guest, Matthew Ritger, is the author of Houses of Correction: Carceral Institutions and Humanist Culture in Early Modern England (U Pennsylvania Press, 2026). This book delves into the archival records of Bridewell, Europe’s first house of correction, which was overseen b ... Show More
46m 58s
Jul 22
David I. Waddington, "The Hidden Curriculum of Video Games" (McGill-Queen's UP, 2026)
Despite decades of inflammatory rhetoric, the real risk of video games lies not in their violent imagery but in the ethical and political sensibilities they normalize. Video games reward speed, efficiency, control, and meritocratic mastery, training players to align with a techno ... Show More
42m 13s
Aug 2025
#431 — What Is Happening on College Campuses?
Sam Harris speaks with Michael Roth about the state of higher education in the U.S. They discuss whether concerns about wokeness were overblown, how colleges should handle campus protests, where universities should draw the line on extreme political views, DEI, why Jews should be ... Show More
23m 29s
Sep 2024
Melissa Osborne, "Polished: College, Class, and the Burdens of Social Mobility" (U Chicago Press, 2024)
Why do people go to college? In Polished: College, Class, and the Burdens of Social Mobility (U Chicago Press, 2024), Melissa Osborne, an associate professor at Western Washington University, explores the experiences of students from low income and first-generation backgrounds wh ... Show More
45m 40s
Sep 2024
Melissa Osborne, "Polished: College, Class, and the Burdens of Social Mobility" (U Chicago Press, 2024)
Why do people go to college? In Polished: College, Class, and the Burdens of Social Mobility (U Chicago Press, 2024), Melissa Osborne, an associate professor at Western Washington University, explores the experiences of students from low income and first-generation backgrounds wh ... Show More
45m 40s
Mar 2024
Think For Yourself: Breaking Out Of Indoctrination
It was my pleasure to speak with American cosmologist and professor of physics Janna Levin, about a range of subjects around religion, morality and improving public scientific literacy. How does our society rob children of the right to truth, by indoctrinating them into their bel ... Show More
48m 39s
Dec 2024
E214: Karenna Malavanti: Understanding academia, valuing non-tenure track faculty, and advocacy
In this episode Eric interviews Karenna Malavanti from Baylor University in Waco, TX. Karenna discusses issues faced by non-tenure track faculty and her recent presentation with Melissa Maffeo on supporting teaching-focused faculty in higher education. This wide-ranging interview ... Show More
55m 25s
Oct 2020
Rosanne Carlo, "Transforming Ethos: Place and the Material in Rhetoric and Writing" (Utah State UP, 2020)
Transforming Ethos: Place and the Material in Rhetoric and Writing (Utah State UP, 2020) approaches writing studies from the rhetorical flank, the flank which, for many, is the only flank the discipline has. However, at a time when universities are optimizing structurally and str ... Show More
1h 22m
In this episode I discuss the book Understanding Social Images: Essays on Visual Methods and Teaching Anthropology (Berghahn, 2025) with co-editors David Zeitlyn and Chihab El Khachab, a posthumous collection of writings by the late anthropologist Marcus Banks. Banks was a key the figures in development of visual anthropology, but his work remains ... Show More
