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“Follow”? “Block”? “Accept”? Anthropologist Ilana Gershon joins us to reflect on breakups in both our intimate and working lives. She tells Alexis and Rosie how hearing her students’ surprising stories of using new media – supposedly a tool for connection – to end romantic entanglements led to her 2010 book “The Breakup 2.0”. She also shares insights from studying hiring in corporate America and describes how, in the febrile “new economy”, the very nature of networking and how we understand our careers have been transformed.
Ilana also celebrates Marilyn Strathern’s influential article “Cutting the Network” for challenging our assumptions about endless and easy connection. She responds to the work of sociologists Richard Sennett and Mark Granovetter, and highlights Teri Silvio’s theory of “animation” as a fruitful way of thinking about our online selves.
Plus: Rosie, Alexis and Ilana share their pop culture picks on this month’s theme, from the hit TV show “Severance” to the phenomenon of “shitposting” on Linkedin.
Guest: Ilana Gershon
Hosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu Truong
Executive Producer: Alice Bloch
Sound Engineer: David Crackles
Music: Joe Gardner
Artwork: Erin Aniker
Find more about Uncommon Sense at The Sociological Review.
Episode Resources
Ilana, Rosie, Alexis and our producer Alice recommended
From The Sociological Review
By Ilana Gershon
Further reading
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What makes “good” taste? Who decides? And what’s it got to do with inequality? Sociologist Irmak Karademir Hazir grew up watching women in her parents’ clothing boutique. She explains how her fascination for taste emerged from that and why talking about things like fashion, film and music is far from trivial – it’s how we distinguish ourselves from others; how we’re recognised, or dismissed.
Irmak tells Rosie and Alexis how sociologists such as Pierre Bourdieu have theorised “distinction”, showing how “highbrow” taste is decided by those with money and other kinds of capital. They also discuss the idea of the “cultural omnivore” and ask: Is what looks like broad consumption – of everything from opera to grime – just elitism in disguise?
Plus: Why are Marvel blockbusters Irmak’s “guilty pleasure”? Why is “symbolic violence” as scary as it sounds? And do we have a moral duty to be honest about our tastes?
Guest: Irmak Karademir Hazir
Hosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu Truong
Executive Producer: Alice Bloch
Sound Engineer: David Crackles
Music: Joe Gardner
Artwork: Erin Aniker
Find more about Uncommon Sense at The Sociological Review.
Production Note: This episode was recorded shortly before the devastating earthquake in southern and central Turkey and northern and western Syria.
Episode Resources
Irmak, Rosie, Alexis and our producer Alice recommended
From The Sociological Review
By Irmak Karademir Hazir
Further reading
** Complete our listener survey here! It helps us, a charity, learn who’s listening to Uncommon Sense, and why. Thank you **
Support our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense
Interested in podcasting with us? Read more here, and contact us at [email protected]
Sign up to the Sociological Review Foundation newsletter
What does it mean to really listen in a society obsessed with spectacle? What’s hidden when powerful people claim to “hear” or “give voice” to others? And what’s at stake if we think that using fancy recording devices helps us to neatly capture “truth”?
Les Back – author of “The Art of Listening” – tells Alexis and Rosie why listening to society is crucial, but cautions that there’s nothing inherently superior about the hearing sense. Rather, we must “re-tune our ears to society” and listen responsibly, with care, and in doubt.
Plus: why should we think critically before accepting invitations to “trust our senses”? And why do so many sociologists also happen to be musicians?
Guest: Les Back
Hosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu Truong
Executive Producer: Alice Bloch
Sound Engineer: David Crackles
Music: Joe Gardner
Artwork: Erin Aniker
Find more about Uncommon Sense at The Sociological Review.
Episode Resources
Les, Rosie, Alexis and our producer Alice recommended
From The Sociological Review
By Les Back
Further reading and viewing
Also, have a look at the scholarly work of Paul Gilroy and Frantz Fanon, and the music of Evelyn Glennie.
** Complete our listener survey here! It helps us, a charity, learn who’s listening to Uncommon Sense, and why. Thank you **
Support our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense
Interested in podcasting with us? Read more here, and contact us at [email protected]
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In this supposedly “post-colonial” age, the idea of the native continues to be distorted and deployed, whether in Narendra Modi’s India or calls for “British jobs for British workers”. How and why has this word – so powerful in the age of empire – lived on into the 21st century? Who gains? And how has it gone from being a term applied to those ruled over by colonisers, to a label chosen by people promoting their own interests against others?
Nandita Sharma joins Alexis and Rosie to discuss all this and more, including the exclusionary logic at the heart of the post-colonial nation state. We further ask: how can true decolonisation occur if the very idea of the nation state still features colonial logic? Does it make the idea of decolonising the “national” curriculum an oxymoron?
Also, Nandita exposes the assumptions revealed by researchers’ fears of “going native”, and reflects on the idea of a borderless world. Plus: a celebration of Manuela Zechner’s “Remembering Europe”.
Guest: Nandita Sharma
Hosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu Truong
Executive Producer: Alice Bloch
Sound Engineer: David Crackles
Music: Joe Gardner
Artwork: Erin Aniker
Find more about Uncommon Sense at The Sociological Review.
Episode Resources
Nandita, Rosie, Alexis and our producer Alice recommended
From The Sociological Review
By Nandita Sharma
Further readings
** Complete our listener survey here! It helps us, a charity, learn who’s listening to Uncommon Sense, and why. Thank you **
Support our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense
Interested in podcasting with us? Read more here, and contact us at [email protected]
Sign up to the Sociological Review Foundation newsletter
Emojis! Feminism! Rage! Sociologist Billy Holzberg joins us to talk about emotion. Why is it dismissed as an obstacle to progress and clear thinking – and to whose benefit? How can we let anger into politics without sanctioning far-right violence? And why are some of us freer than others to play with emotional abjection? Billy reflects on all this and more with Alexis and Rosie, celebrating thinkers from Sara Ahmed to Karl Marx, W.E.B. Du Bois to Yasmin Gunaratnam.
Billy also reflects on queerness, childhood and shame; the emotional precarity of TV’s Fleabag; the playfulness of emojis; and the desperate but subversive power of the hunger striker. Plus: a welcome clarification of the slippery line between affect and emotion.
Guest: Billy Holzberg
Hosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu Truong
Executive Producer: Alice Bloch
Sound Engineer: David Crackles
Music: Joe Gardner
Artwork: Erin Aniker
Find more about Uncommon Sense at The Sociological Review.
Episode Resources
Billy, Rosie, Alexis and our producer Alice recommended
From The Sociological Review
By Billy Holzberg
Further readings
** Complete our listener survey here! It helps us, a charity, learn who’s listening to Uncommon Sense, and why. Thank you **
Support our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense
Interested in podcasting with us? Read more here, and contact us at [email protected]
Sign up to the Sociological Review Foundation newsletter
Lonely? Mean? Hostile? Cities get a bad rap. But why? Romit Chowdhury has lived in cities worldwide; from Kolkata to Rotterdam. He tells Alexis and Rosie about the wonder of urban “enchantment” found in a stranger’s smile, our changing ideas of the “urban”, and why anonymity is not always in fact the enemy of civility and friendship in the city.
Plus: how did “walking the city” emerge as a revolutionary research method? And why is Romit so fascinated with public transport – from exploring auto-rickshaw drivers’ masculinity in Kolkata, to studying sexual violence on the busy trains of Tokyo.
Romit, Alexis and Rosie also share their tips for thinking differently about urban life – from Japanese film to novels that explode norms about bodies in the city.
Guest: Romit Chowdhury
Hosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu Truong
Executive Producer: Alice Bloch
Sound Engineer: David Crackles
Music: Joe Gardner
Artwork: Erin Aniker
Find more about Uncommon Sense at The Sociological Review.
Episode Resources
Romit, Rosie, Alexis and our producer Alice recommended
From The Sociological Review
By Romit Chowdhury
Further readings
** Complete our listener survey here! It helps us, a charity, learn who’s listening to Uncommon Sense, and why. Thank you **
Support our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense
Interested in podcasting with us? Read more here, and contact us at [email protected]
Sign up to the Sociological Review Foundation newsletter
We each have a body, but every body’s story is unique. In this intimate conversation, sociologist Charlotte Bates tells Alexis and Rosie why studying bodies – and how we talk about them – matters in a society where some are privileged over others, and why ableism harms us all.
Charlotte talks about her co-authored work on wild swimming, arguing that despite its commodification, it holds subversive power. She also considers how the unwell body collides with the demands of capitalist life – revealing just how absurd it can be. Plus: what “wellness” fails to capture – and why health is not a lifestyle choice.
Guest: Charlotte Bates
Hosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu Truong
Executive Producer: Alice Bloch
Sound Engineer: David Crackles
Music: Joe Gardner
Artwork: Erin Aniker
Find more about Uncommon Sense at The Sociological Review.
Episode Resources
Charlotte, Rosie, Alexis and our producer Alice recommended
From The Sociological Review
By Charlotte Bates
Further readings
** Complete our listener survey here! It helps us, a charity, learn who’s listening to Uncommon Sense, and why. Thank you **
Support our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense
Interested in podcasting with us? Read more here, and contact us at [email protected]
Sign up to the Sociological Review Foundation newsletter
EDUCATORS! STUDENTS! LISTENERS! We want to hear from you ...
We’re taking a short summer break, and will be back in September ready and refreshed for the new term, and with a new episode for you!
So, while Rosie and Alexis have some well-earned time-outs – and catch up on reading for forthcoming shows on things like cities, emotion and noise – we have a request: Could you use just a few of those spare 45 minutes this month to share some of your thoughts with us? To be precise, we'd like to know how we can help you ...
Share your thoughts with us by email, by Instagram, and on Twitter. You can also read all about using podcasts in the classroom from The Sociological Review's podcast lead Professor Michaela Benson.
And recommend us to friends, family and more. It's easy to subscribe – look us up in whatever app you use and tap "follow"!
We'll be back in September – See you soon!
** Complete our listener survey here! It helps us, a charity, learn who’s listening to Uncommon Sense, and why. Thank you **
Support our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense
Interested in podcasting with us? Read more here, and contact us at [email protected]
Sign up to the Sociological Review Foundation newsletter
Too often, talk about security seems to belong to politicians and psychologists; to discussions about terrorism and defence, individual anxiety and insecurity. But how do sociologists think about it? And why care?
Daria Krivonos – who works on migration, race and class in Central and Eastern Europe – tells Alexis and Rosie why security matters. What’s the impact of calling migration a “security threat”? How does the security of the privileged rely on the insecurity of the precarious? And, as Russia’s war in Ukraine continues, what would it mean to truly #StandwithUkraine – from ensuring better job security for its workers abroad, to cancelling its debt?
Plus: pop culture pointers; from Kae Tempest’s “People’s Faces” to the movie “The Mauritanian” – and Alexis’ teenage passion for Rage Against the Machine.
Guest: Daria Krivonos
Hosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu Truong
Executive Producer: Alice Bloch
Sound Engineer: David Crackles
Music: Joe Gardner
Artwork: Erin Aniker
Find more about Uncommon Sense at The Sociological Review.
Episode Resources
Daria, Rosie and Alexis recommended
From The Sociological Review
By Daria Krivonos
Further readings
** Complete our listener survey here! It helps us, a charity, learn who’s listening to Uncommon Sense, and why. Thank you **
Support our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense
Interested in podcasting with us? Read more here, and contact us at [email protected]
Sign up to the Sociological Review Foundation newsletter
Think of intimacy and, pretty soon, you’ll probably think about sex. But, as sociologist Katherine Twamley explains, intimacy means much more than that: it’s woven through so many of our relationships – including with people whose names we might not even know. She tells Rosie and Alexis how an accidental trip to India got her thinking about the varied meanings of “love” across cultures and contexts, and reflects on whether, to quote the famous song, love and marriage really do “go together like a horse and carriage”.
Plus: what could it mean to decolonise love? Why should we be wary of acts performed in the name of love? Will we ever live in a truly “contactless” world, and who wants that? And we get intimate with the artist Sophie Calle.
Guest: Katherine Twamley
Hosts: Rosie Hancock, Alexis Hieu Truong
Executive Producer: Alice Bloch
Sound Engineer: David Crackles
Music: Joe Gardner
Artwork: Erin Aniker
Find more about Uncommon Sense at The Sociological Review.
Episode Resources
Katherine, Rosie, Alexis and our producer Alice recommended
From The Sociological Review
Further readings
** Complete our listener survey here! It helps us, a charity, learn who’s listening to Uncommon Sense, and why. Thank you **
Support our work. Make a one-off or regular donation to help fund future episodes of Uncommon Sense: donorbox.org/uncommon-sense
Interested in podcasting with us? Read more here, and contact us at [email protected]
Sign up to the Sociological Review Foundation newsletter
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