Épisodes

  • What’s on Her Mind: The Mental Workload of Family Life

    What’s on Her Mind: The Mental Workload of Family Life
    Mar 12 2026
    Mothers and fathers use their time differently, with women spending roughly twice as many hours on family labor as men. But what about the gendered differences in the ways women and men think? What’s on Her Mind examines the cognitive labor that families depend on, and reveals why this essential aspect of family life is disproportionately handled by women—even in couples that aspire to practice equality. While most accounts of household labor center on how people use their time, Dr. Allison Daminger focuses on a less visible and less easily quantifiable aspect of family life. She introduces readers to the concept of cognitive labor—anticipating, researching, deciding, and following up—and shows how women in different-gender couples do most of this critical work. Dr. Daminger argues that cognitive labor has less to do with personality traits—for example, she’s type A while he’s laid-back—and more to do with learned skills that men and women deploy in distinct ways. Yet not all couples fall into the personality trap. Dr. Daminger looks at different-gender couples who achieve a more balanced cognitive allocation while also exploring how queer couples carve out unique relationships to the gender binary. Drawing on original, in-depth interviews with members of different- and same-gender couples, What’s on Her Mind points to new ways of understanding the interplay between who we are as individuals and the cognitive work we do on behalf of our families. Our guest is: Dr. Allison Daminger, who is assistant professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She’s the author of What’s On Her Mind; her work has also been featured in publications such as the New York Times, the Guardian, Psychology Today, and the Atlantic. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, who is an academic writing coach and editor. She is the producer and show host of the Academic Life podcast. Playlist for listeners: You're Doing It Wrong Raising Them Sin Padres Ni Papeles Tomboy PhDing While Parenting Sharing lessons from his working-class parents Recipes, parenting, and grief We Take Our Cities With Us Secret Harvests The Translators Daughter Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! Please join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 300+ Academic Life episodes? Find them here. And thank you for listening!
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    51 min
  • Wendy Brown, "States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity" (Princeton UP, 2025)

    Wendy Brown, "States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity" (Princeton UP, 2025)
    Mar 12 2026
    A sympathetic critique that attempts to free Left politics from its own snares, States of Injury: Power and Freedom in Late Modernity (Princeton University Press, 2025) explores how woundedness became a basis for contemporary political identity. Without condemning identity politics, Wendy Brown carefully probes the varied historical forces generating them today and the ways these formative conditions constrain emancipatory desire. Along the way, she advances a novel feminist critical theory of liberalism and the liberal democratic state. She also develops an original theoretical practice that weaves together Nietzsche, Marx, Weber, Foucault, and cultural theories of gender and race to analyze contemporary political predicaments. In a new preface, Brown places States of Injury in political and intellectual context, including the rise of neoliberalism, and addresses the book’s renewed relevance in today’s political landscape. Wendy Brown is the UPS Foundation Professor in the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study. Her books include Nihilistic Times, In the Ruins of Neoliberalism, and Undoing the Demos. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/a48266/videos
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    41 min
  • Understanding Iran Under Attack: A Discussion with Author Vali Nasr

    Understanding Iran Under Attack: A Discussion with Author Vali Nasr
    Mar 12 2026
    Eleven days into the attack on Iran by the United States and Israel, starting on Feb. 28, 2026, I speak with Vali Nasr, a renowned analyst of Iran. He’s the author of several books dealing with Iran, including most recently Iran’s Grand Strategy: A Political History (Princeton University Press, 2025). Nasr was born in Tehran in 1960 and is currently a professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. In our talk, he discusses his surprise at the resilience the Iranian government has so far displayed in the war, as well as the high degree of advance planning the government performed in anticipation of the attack. Although many Iranians do not like the Islamic Republic, he told me, there is nevertheless a resurgent element of Iranian nationalism in Iranian society. The West, he believes, underestimates the cohesion of Iran. Vali Nasr is the Majid Khadduri Professor of International Affairs and Middle East Studies at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. Paul Starobin is a former contributing editor of The Atlantic and a former Moscow bureau chief of Business Week. His companion Substack newsletter America and Beyond includes transcripts of podcasts.
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    48 min
  • Kim Bowes, "Surviving Rome: The Economic Lives of the Ninety Percent" (Princeton UP, 2025)

    Kim Bowes, "Surviving Rome: The Economic Lives of the Ninety Percent" (Princeton UP, 2025)
    Mar 12 2026
    The story of ancient Rome is predominantly one of great men with great fortunes. Surviving Rome: The Economic Lives of the Ninety Percent (Princeton UP, 2025) unearths another history, one of ordinary Romans, who worked with their hands and survived through a combination of grit and grinding labor.  Focusing on the working majority, Kim Bowes tells the stories of people like the tenant farmer Epimachus, Faustilla the moneylender, and the pimp Philokles. She reveals how the economic changes of the period created a set of bitter challenges and opportunistic hustles for everyone from farmers and craftspeople to day laborers and slaves. She finds working people producing a consumer revolution, making and buying all manner of goods from fine pottery to children’s toys. Many of the poorest working people probably pieced together a living from multiple sources of income, including wages. And she suggests that Romans’ most daunting challenge was the struggle to save. Like many modern people, saving enough to buy land or start a business was a slow, precarious slog. Bowes shows how these economies of survival were shared by a wide swath of the populace, blurring the lines between genders, ages, and legal status.Drawing on new archaeological and textual evidence, Surviving Rome presents a radical new perspective on the economy of ancient Rome while speaking to the challenges of today’s laborers and gig workers surviving in an unforgiving global world. Kim Bowes is professor of archaeology and ancient history at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of Houses and Society in the Later Roman Empire and Private Worship, Public Values, and Religious Change in Late Antiquity. Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube Channel: here
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    1 h et 2 min
  • Bryan Caplan's Case Against Education

    Bryan Caplan's Case Against Education
    Mar 6 2026
    Today I’m speaking with economist Bryan Caplan about education and bullshit, with a particular focus on his book, The Case Against Education: Why the Education System Is a Waste of Time and Money (Princeton University Press, 2018). In our modern economy, possessing a college degree feels like a necessity for professional advancement. The age of good jobs for college dropouts is largely gone as more people spend more time in the classroom, writing papers, taking tests, and, of course, goofing off. On the one hand, policymakers celebrate the additional degrees attained by more people. Surely a more educated society means a more intelligent and productive one. It’s no secret that college grads make more money than dropouts, and high school grads make more than those who didn’t complete 12th grade. Why is this the case? Does more education truly endow students with the skills necessary to succeed in the working world, or does education merely serve to certify that an individual has the intelligence and people skills needed to succeed? If the primary value of education is to signal conformity to employers’ expectations, then education as we know it is a waste of time, energy, and money. Degrees range in practicality, but most—like economics—hardly spend time teaching the kinds of skills that translate to the jobs most graduates actually take. As Bryan puts it, “As far as I can tell, the only marketable skill I teach is how to be an economics professor.” The world certainly needs some economics professors, but the sentiment behind the point reflects an undeniable dirty little secret. Professors, by and large, teach students about their favorite subjects, not skills for career success. For years, I’ve trumpeted the line that the purpose of higher education is not to teach skills but rather to teach students how to think. The Case Against Education deflates this argument with statistics and great humor. As the type of student who loved taking Russian literature, political philosophy, and economic history, I’m thrilled to speak with Bryan Caplan about bullshit and education. Bryan Caplan is Professor of Economics at George Mason University. Caleb Zakarin is CEO and Publisher of the New Books Network.
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    1 h
  • Allison Carnegie and Richard Clark, "Global Governance Under Fire: How International Organizations Resist the Populist Wave" (Princeton UP, 2026)

    Allison Carnegie and Richard Clark, "Global Governance Under Fire: How International Organizations Resist the Populist Wave" (Princeton UP, 2026)
    Mar 2 2026
    Populist leaders around the world increasingly reject international organizations, decrying them as constraints on state power and rallying followers against the “global elite” who run them. These institutions—painstakingly built through decades of negotiation and multilateral cooperation—are often seen as passive bystanders, unable or unwilling to push back. In Global Governance Under Fire: How International Organizations Resist the Populist Wave (Princeton UP, 2026) Allison Carnegie and Richard Clark challenge this view, arguing that international organizations are, in fact, strategic agents with the tools to resist populist pressures. Offering fresh theoretical insights and original empirical analysis, they investigate how these institutions fight back and how their defensive strategies are reshaping global governance.Using a multimethod approach that draws on novel data and qualitative evidence, Carnegie and Clark identify four key strategies that international organizations employ to both appease and sideline populists and their constituents. They find that while these strategies help fortify global governance against populist opposition, they may also produce unintended consequences, potentially eroding institutional legitimacy and fueling further resistance. A timely and compelling account, the book provides a crucial roadmap for understanding—and safeguarding—the global order. Our guests are Professor Allison Carnegie, a professor of political science at Columbia University. and Professor Richard Clark, who is an assistant professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame Our host is Eleonora Mattiacci, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Amherst College. She is the author of "Volatile States in International Politics" (Oxford University Press, 2023).
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    27 min
  • Moulie Vidas, "The Rise of Talmud" (Princeton UP, 2025)

    Moulie Vidas, "The Rise of Talmud" (Princeton UP, 2025)
    Mar 2 2026
    The rabbinic sages of antiquity are known for their sophisticated and creative reading of Scripture. But beginning in the third century CE, these sages also took on extensive commentary on another kind of text: the sages' own teachings. Focusing on the first collection attesting to this branch of scholarship, the oft-neglected Talmud Yerushalmi, The Rise of Talmud (Princeton University Press, 2025) argues that this new project presented a wide-ranging transformation of the sages' scholarly practice and self-perception. On the one hand, it engaged premises and methods distinct from those the sages applied to Scripture, such as textual criticism and the interpretation of texts in light of the individuals to whom they were attributed. On the other hand, this book shows, this distinct approach did not stem from preexisting differences in the conceptions of Scripture and rabbinic teachings: it reflected a broad reconceptualization of the tradition, diverging from how these teachings were construed by earlier generations. Recognizing these unique aspects of ancient Talmudic scholarship centers its development as a pivotal moment in Jewish intellectual history and offers a richer picture of rabbinic hermeneutics; it also allows us to situate it better among other scholarly traditions of the Greco-Roman world and to examine how different ideas, aims, and contexts shape textual scholarship—including our own. New Books in Late Antiquity is presented by Ancient Jew Review. Moulie Vidas is Associate Professor of Religion and the Program in Judaic Studies at Princeton University. Michael Motia teaches Classics and Religious Studies at UMass Boston.
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    1 h et 11 min
  • Cynthia Miller-Idriss, "Man Up: The New Misogyny and the Rise of Violent Extremism" (Princeton UP, 2025)

    Cynthia Miller-Idriss, "Man Up: The New Misogyny and the Rise of Violent Extremism" (Princeton UP, 2025)
    Feb 27 2026
    The revelatory and urgent story of how an explosion of misogyny is driving a surge of mass and far-right violence throughout the West--from an internationally recognized extremism expert and media commentator What two things do most mass shooters, terrorists, or violent extremists have in common? Most of us know the first: they are almost always men or boys. But the second? They are almost always virulent misogynists, homophobes, or transphobes--even if they are also motivated by racism, antisemitism, or xenophobia. The antigovernment militiamen charged with plotting to kidnap and execute Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer used language saturated with misogyny, with one telling an FBI informant, "Just grab the bitch." The men who killed scores at Virginia Tech, the Pulse nightclub, and a Maryland newsroom all had prior reports of stalking, domestic violence, or harassment of women. And in dozens of other incidents--from North America to Norway to New Zealand--an increasing number of misogynist incel (involuntary celibate) and male supremacist attackers have explicitly targeted and killed women, blaming feminism or sexual frustration with women as motivation for their attacks. Yet, despite all evidence, the bright red thread of misogyny running through these attacks is barely acknowledged by the media or even experts--and this failing leaves us powerless to stop the violence. In Man Up: The New Misogyny and the Rise of Violent Extremism (Princeton UP, 2025), Cynthia Miller-Idriss, a leading expert on extremism, addresses this crucial oversight head-on, revealing how an epidemic of misogyny--both online and off--and a patriarchal backlash are driving an exponential rise in mass and far-right violence. She also offers essential strategies that all of us--including parents, teachers, and counselors--can use to fight the rising tide of violence, beginning with recognizing the misogyny that pervades our everyday lives.
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    47 min