OxPods

How do religious communities engage with questions of empire, power, peace, and political action? And what can these debates tell us about global histories of non-violence? I’m Robert Taylor, a History DPhil student at New College, researching the post-1945 British counterculture’s interest in India. Today I’m joined by Floris de Ruiter, a PhD candidate at the Institute for History, University of...

What is Sufism? How do we investigate its global history? And through what processes did it come to influence those in the West? I’m Robert Taylor, a History DPhil student at New College, researching the post-1945 British counterculture’s interest in India. Today I’m joined by Nile Green, a Professor at UCLA. Nile is a historian of South Asia with a diverse range of publications spanning global, s...

What is Hinduism? Where does it come from? How do we look at it comparatively? And which ideas have made it so influential outside of South Asia? I’m Robert Taylor, a History DPhil student at New College, researching the post-1945 British counterculture’s interest in India. Today I’m joined by Professor Gavin Flood at Campion Hall. Gavin is Professor Emeritus of Hindu Studies and Comparative Relig...

How did hippiedom manifest in the Soviet Union? What were the differences between Western and Russian hippies? What are the problems and possibilities of using oral history to tell these sometimes-controversial stories? And how did the political views of some hippies change after the 60s and 70s? I’m Robert Taylor, a History DPhil student at New College, researching the post-1945 British countercu...

Formally emerging in 1929, the Gulag was a vast system of incarceration that came to reach every corner of the USSR. At its peak, in the early 1950s, 2.5 million citizens were interned in its camps and settlements; over its lifetime, an estimated 20 million people were forcibly imprisoned. In this episode, Professor Polly Jones discusses her new book,  Gulag Fiction , which considers the literary...

Across the animal kingdom sexual behaviours have evolved which increase the chances of individuals finding a mate and successfully reproducing. However, some are more of a challenge to explain than others. Masturbation has historically been considered a behaviour which hasn’t evolved to directly improve reproductive success, but recent research has shown that its important in optimising sperm qual...

What is the history of Yoga? And how can something apparently Indian have become such an everyday activity for people across the world? I’m Robert Taylor, a History DPhil student at New College, researching the post-1945 British counterculture’s interest in India. Today I’m joined by Dr Suzanne Newcombe, who was an undergraduate at Amherst College, before completing her MSc at the London School of...

The witch craze that gripped early modern Europe has been the subject of many studies. What can we learn about English society in this period through the lens of belief in and persecution of witches? To begin to answer these questions, Charlie Bowden, a History student at Jesus College, speaks to Dr George Southcombe, Fellow by Special Election in History at Wadham College and author of a forthcom...

The British hippie movement of the 1960s left an indelible mark on popular culture and woven into this counterculture was a fascination with Indian spiritual practices. When the Beatles went to India, for instance, what did they hope to find and to what extent were their hopes wrapped up in colonial thinking about Britain's former imperial territory? To explore this understudied element of the...

The ‘East’ has held a special place in the British cultural imagination. But how can we chart this historically? And how useful are frameworks of ‘East’ and ‘West’ within a modern world connected by technology?
I’m Robert Taylor, a first-year History DPhil student at New College, researching the post-1945 British counterculture’s interest in India. Today I’m joined by Dr Christopher Harding, who c...

To most, otters are those small fluffy creatures that lie back, hold hands and drift off into the sunset. In this episode, PhD student Claire Marr shakes up that expectation in conversation with 4th-year Biology student, Emily Jones, and introduces us to the giant otter: the 2-metre-long Amazonian relative of the otters we already know and love. How different are these giant otters to their smalle...

Understanding the five senses is a foundational element of modern education, but how long has this been the case throughout history? Where did the idea originate and how did it survive when so many other conceptions of human biology from the past have been disproven? To find out more about this topic, Charlie Bowden, a History student at Jesus College, speaks to Dr John Merrington, Examination Fel...

This episode explores the diplomatic strategies of Lusophone African liberation movements at the United Nations. We speak with Maria de Costa to discuss how movements in Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau built international alliances and shaped their political identities to push for independence. Host: Kwame Appafram Producer: Florence Allen Looking to make the most of Oxford’s world-leading pr...

Queer history is a relatively new addition to the lexicon of historical analysis, and questions remain about how best to approach the study of queerness in the past. To what extent can we 'find' queer identity in the past? In this episode, Charlie Bowden, a History student at Jesus College, speaks to Professor Matt Cook, the Jonathan Cooper Professor of the History of Sexuality at Mansfiel...

The development of Christianity in the centuries following the death of Jesus was far from plain sailing. Which ideas and authors played the most significant roles in the shape of the religion as it entered the second millennium? To query this, Charlie Bowden, a History student at Jesus College, speaks to Dr Conrad Leyser, Associate Professor of Medieval History at Worcester College about the firs...

Climate change is understandably a current hot topic (no pun intended) that many of us care a lot about. But how good is our climate literacy, really? Three panellists from Oxford take on this topic, bringing in their expertise - from law to sustainable development. This is the perfect episode for listeners wanting to bolster their knowledge of climate change, especially in the face of seemingly r...

Host: Charlie Bowden Editor: Charlie Bowden In celebration of the 300th anniversary of the establishment of the Regius Professorship of History at Oxford, the History Faculty organised a research event entitled ‘What is History now?’ at Trinity College. Charlie Bowden, a History student at Jesus College, speaks to a variety of attendees, from visiting professors to PhD students to employees in the...

Description: The process of creolization, in which various languages and cultures mix into diverse new forms, has been an underutilised tool in historical analysis for some time. In the context of medieval Latin Europe and the development of myriad successor states after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, creolization can demonstrate some significant cultural shifts that warrant academic at...

Our final episode of the academic year! An interview with Nuffield College postdoctoral prize research fellow Vicente Valentim on the theory put forward in his upcoming book “The Normalization of the Radical Right: A Norms Theory of Political Supply and Demand.” Dr Valentim discusses how far right ideologies grow and parties with these views gain power, often at shocking speed. Valentim pushes bac...

British society was fundamentally shifted by the Second World War, and among the many transformations that took place in the post-war years, those experienced by young people in respect to their education and political engagement were among the most significant. To explore this topic further, in this episode Charlie Bowden, a History student at Jesus College, speaks to Dr Helen Sunderland, Leverhu...

Pandemics of the past highlight the persistent threat of disease throughout human history. It might seem that our repeated encounters with infectious diseases should have better prepared us for such cases. Yet, the COVID-19 pandemic was not without its own challenges.  In this episode of Oxpods, Rithika Ravishankar, a third-year Biology undergraduate at Hertford College speaks with Dr. Sunetra Gup...

Depression has developed from a taboo topic to one that is widely spoken about and investigated in recent years. There are several debates surrounding its heritability, symptoms whether diagnosis can have a positive or negative impact on an individual. In this episode, Aylin Gurleyen, a 2nd-year Psychologist at Brasenose, speaks to Prof. Lucy Bowes, professor of developmental psychopathology at Ma...

When we read anthropological accounts, it is easy to overlook the extensive fieldwork and lived experiences that inform them. How can anthropologists interrogate the ethics of their discipline, and fundamentally, what does anthropology offer?  In this episode of Oxpods, Ushika Kidd, a second-year Human Sciences student at Keble, speaks with Dr. Sophie Chao, anthropologist and academic at the Unive...

Starting in comic books and more recently appearing in movies and television shows, characters like Captain America and Superman have become household names. But where did these superheroes come from? And what do they reveal about our modern era? Examining the evolution of the superhero from its roots in ancient societies to today, join us as we explore this mythic figure throughout Western cultur...

Traditions of political protest in Spain, particularly the practices of caceroladas and cencerradas, have frequently been conflated by modern scholars as they are both actions rooted in the production of sound. In this episode Charlie Bowden, a History student at Jesus College, speaks to Dr Matthew Kerry, Associate Professor of the History of Europe since 1870 and Zeitlyn Fellow and Tutor in Histo...