Pod Academy

What does an image tell us about the reality it represents? Rod Stonemanʼs latest book, Seeing is Believing: the Politics of the Visual, explores the relationship between world and image in our visually mediated society. In this series, produced and presented by Pod Academy's Esther Gaytan-Fuertes, Rod Stoneman talks about some of the images analysed in his book. In this first instalment of the series, he examines the language of fashion. Rod Stoneman: This photograph is quite extraordinary in many ways. It comes from a magazine called Glamour, Glamour Magazine and it represents a young woman in a vivid red cardigan, I think, well I imagine itʼd be cashmere and sheʼs over intently reading a book by V.I. Lenin called The State and Revolution. It opens a whole series of questions about the relationship of fashion to the image system. One can say that the world of art thatʼs included in the domain of art within the image system has been widened and the boundaries are soft and inclusive —one probably can t

Podcast produced and presented by Jo Barratt. "No human sense is more neglected in ethnographic museums than sound".  The  Reel to Real project at the Pitt Rivers Museum seeks to redress the balance by making available, both in and beyond the museum space itself, the important sound collections donated to the museum over the past 100 years. In this podcast, the second in our Pitt Rivers series, Jo Barratt and Sarah Winkler Reid from the University of Bristol talk to ethnomusicologist, Dr Noel Lobley about the hundreds of hours of historically important and rare ethnographic sound held in storage in the museum, much of it known only to a handful of scholars. These sound recordings – which range from children’s songs in Britain to music from South America and the South Pacific, and from improvised water drumming to the sound of rare earth bows in the rainforests of the Central African Republic – have been preserved but until the Real to Real project have remained unavailable to members of the public, teachers

Nic Dawes [@NicDawes]  (until last month editor of South Africa’s Mail and Guardian newspaper) has a formidable reputation as an investigative journalist and campaigner for press freedom.  His last 2 years at the Mail and Guardian have been marked by tough struggles between leading South African journalists and the South African government, As he prepared for a new challenge at the Hindustan Times in India, he talked to Rachael Jolley, Editor of Index on Censorship magazine about the importance of social media, which he said ‘outsources part of the editing function to the wider community’,  the moves by the ANC to put in place a Media Appeal Tribunal with political appointees, a secrecy bill that would have made it almost impossible for the public or the media to uncover evidence about corruption or to protect whistleblowers, and the way the Marikana Mine massacre eventually hit the headlines, though the Mail and Guardian had covered the appalling conditions at the mine a year earlier. Despite his concerns,

This is the first of a two part series in which Pod Academy's Paul Brister looks at the fundamentally new approach the UN appears to be taking to the crisis in the Kivu provinces in the East of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). In it he speaks to Dr Phil Clark, Reader in Comparative and International Politics, with reference to Africa, from The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), to consider the causes behind the conflict; why the UN is changing tack and deploying an aggressive intervention Brigade; and what this brigade’s chances of success are. But first Paul explains the context.... The paradoxically named Congo Free State was famously the setting for Joseph Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness. The country has changed its name four times since then, but the title of Conrad’s novella seems as apt a description of the DRC today as it was then. Sat astride the equator and covered in jungle, the country receives high rainfalls – and has the highest frequency of thunderstorms in the world. Beset on

Are you sick of the overheated, braying politics of Westminster, where there is a lot of heat, but not much light? What’s the alternative?  Try this: A rational parliament would be ruled by free thinking and would respect the balance between personal values and scientific research.  It would value independent reasoning above organised thinking, such as uncritical political party allegiance.  It would debate current live topics. It would be open to reform.  It should be configured in a horseshoe and at least two individuals who have conducted publicly funded academic research on the topic would have to be in attendance.  Every member would have the same right to speak, and no one should make a personal attack on a fellow member of the speaker. In its debates, claims of research findings should be supported with references to academic literature and provided on request. Members proposing a motion should take no more than five minutes to do so and any member who receive payment related to the views they take on

It is now 5 years since the collapse of Lehman Bros and the start of the financial crisis that collapse precipitated.  Though most of us grow more and more cynical and angry about the financial system, how many of us really understand it? Brett Scott is well placed to lead us on an exploration of radical approaches to global finance, shareholder activism..  An anthropologist and former whizz kid broker, his  Heretic's Guide to Global Finance: Hacking the Future of Money offers the reader a framework for approaching the financial system based on hacking, activist entrepreneurialism, DIY and open source culture. In the podcast, Brett talks to Craig Barfoot about the creative disruption of hacking and describes  ‘the sheer joy and curiosity of exploring an economic system……..once you’ve explored the financial system enough you can see the weak points and how you can exploit them.” Brett’s hacker approach is to take the existing technology and play with it creatively - changing the DNA of a financial instrumen

Pod Academy's Daniel Marc Janes speaks to playwright and academic Dan Rebellato, Professor of Contemporary Theatre at Royal Holloway and one of Britain’s leading theatrical commentators. Daniel Marc Janes: I’m in the Calder Theatre Bookshop in London. It couldn’t be better located to evoke Britain’s theatrical heritage, situated as it is on The Cut alongside the Old Vic and the Young Vic. Looking at the bookshop’s selection, I can see plays from some of the most distinguished British playwrights of recent years. Here’s David Greig... Sarah Kane... Dennis Kelly... Mark Ravenhill. What all these writers have in common is that they all studied drama at the university level. But drama at the university is a recent innovation. Many of Britain’s most brilliant playwrights have been autodidacts: Tom Stoppard, George Bernard Shaw, William Shakespeare. So why study drama? I’m in the downstairs rehearsal space of the Calder Theatre Bookshop. This is a place where writers and performers go to make plays come alive. Bu

Federica di Lascio writes: NATCEN [the National Centre for Social Research, UK] recently held a panel focusing on the relationship between flexible working and work-life balance. It was chaired by Dalia Ben-Galim, Associate Director of IPPR. Starting from some recent research (Workplace Employment Relation Study, 2011), and comparing them with older ones (The Time of our Lives; 2003, 2008), the panelists agreed that there is actually a strong business case for flexible working, even though it is still considered simply a staff benefit. The speakers underlined the reality of the new workplace  - looking at global competition (with businesses facing increasing demands for flexibility and efficiency), the changing labour market, the changing size and structure of businesses, and also the changing needs of staff, such as looking after older relatives as we become an aging society. According to research, the majority of UK managers would consider the possibility of introducing flexible working arrangements (par

This podcast looks at how even disadvantaged kids in Vietnam are educationally years ahead of their counterparts in India, despite per capita GDP being broadly the same in both countries. Amanda Barnes talked to Professor Jo Boyden, director of the Young Lives research programme at the Department of International Development at Oxford University, about their research findings. Amanda Barnes: The Young Lives study has been following the progress of thousands of children in the developing world.  And you’ve got some new findings from a survey of ten year-old pupils in Vietnam.  What did the Young Lives study find out about education in Vietnam? Jo Boyden: Young Lives has established that pupil performance is really exceptional in some very important ways.  Around 19 out of every 20 ten year-olds, for example, can add four -digit numbers.  At the same time 85% can subtract fractions and 81% are able to find X in a simple equation. This is partly to do with the school systems but it’s also to do with the fact

Are drones a vital piece of modern weaponry, or inhuman and illegal weapons that galvanise potential recruits for Al Qaeda?

The conflict in Syria demonstrates the growing importance of crowd-sourced news, but it is crucial to cut through the fakes and the propaganda to verify it.

Every day the sun throws 165,000 terra watts of energy at the earth. But the energy required by the world's 7bn people is just 10-15 terra watts per day. A new generation of solar power promises a sustainable future.

Year-in, year-out the circus comes to town. But in 2013 circuses are in trouble. Seen by many as entertainment from a bygone age and facing Government action to ban circuses with wild animals, what is it that keeps circuses on the road? Why do they carry on going? In this podcast, Lee Millam talks to Professor Ron Beadle, Director of Research Ethics at Northumbria University, who has published the first major study of the motivations of circus-owner directors in the UK and Ireland. His research, published in The Journal of Business Ethics, examines the factors that drive circus managers to continue in the industry despite such intense opposition and obstacles. “The people who run Britain’s circuses do it for love, not for money…Their business is vulnerable to the weather, to animal rights protestors, hostile local authorities and increasing fuel costs. Yet they continue because of an emotional bond with their art form and the people who perform it. The circus is a unique form of entertainment. Unlike the the

As the world changes, so sexual identities are in flux. Have globalisation and mass communication disrupted and reshaped traditional patterns of identity and intimacy?

Volcanoes - Andy Warhol painted them, scientists study them, tourists gawp at them and legendary vulcanologist Haraldur Sigurðsson has spent 50 years taking the temperatures of these exploding mountains.

Part 2 of our Bitcoin podcast looks at the political and philosophical implications of private currencies and what they can teach existing systems

Will Bitcoin, a private digital currency, replace national currencies such as euros, dollars and pounds? Will it languish as an anonymous currency for money laundering and drug deals? Is it a speculative investment rather than a currency? First part of a 2 part podcast.

Why is there such a marked disengagement from politics among the white working class? And why such widespread cynicism about politicians?

The Cinema Memories Project: British cinema-going in the 1960s and the nature of cultural memory.

Audio-visual art is familiar, but the audio-olfactory is surprising. Oswaldo Maciá explains why he uses sound and smell to construct knowledge in his exhibition The Library of Cynicism at CHELSEA space until July 20th.