In the first episode of the Climate History Podcast, Dr. Dagomar Degroot (Georgetown University) interviews Dr. Geoffrey Parker (Ohio State University) about human responses to climatic cooling in the seventeenth century. 

Climate Change and Crisis: Lessons from the Past

In the second episode of the Climate History Podcast, Dr. Dagomar Degroot (Georgetown University) and Dr. Sam White (Ohio State University) discuss the origins and future of their Climate History Network; the prospects for climate history as a discipline; the possibilities and pitfalls of interdisciplinary research; the enduring value of the "Little Ice Age" idea, and more. 

The History of Climate Change with Professor Sam White

In the third episode of the Climate History Podcast, Dr. Dagomar Degroot (Georgetown University) interviews Dr. Thomas McGovern (CUNY) and Dr. George Hambrecht (University of Maryland) about archaeology in the Arctic and Subarctic. Topics include: the perils of doing fieldwork in the Far North; the struggles of the Norse in Greenland and Iceland at the onset of the Little Ice Age; the threat of climate change to the archaeological record of northern peoples; and the possibilities (and challenges) of interdisciplinary approaches to Arctic research. 

Archaeology in the Arctic: Reconstructing the Consequences of Climate Change in the Far North

Samsa

Sarah Baldwin talks with Elias Muhanna [https://vivo.brown.edu/display/emuhanna] about an essay he wrote for the New Yorker [https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/a-new-history-of-arabia-written-in-stone] in May 2018 in which he describes recent advances in translating pre-Islamic Arabic texts. The conversation focuses on the groundbreaking translations of Muhanna's friend and colleague Ahmad Al-Jallad and how his work has changed our understanding of life on the Arabian peninsula before Islam.

Editing by Babette Thomas '19
Theme music composed by Henry Ross Bloomfield: www.heybloomfield.com

You can read a transcript of this episode here: [https://watson.brown.edu/files/watson/imce/news/podcast/trending-globally/transcripts/E68_Elias%20Final%20mp3%20Bounce_mixdown.pdf]

Translating Ancient Texts in the Middle of the Desert

E491 | What is Islamic modernism, and how did authors of this movement position themselves vis-á-vis other 19th century intellectual movements? In this episode, we examine how Islamic modernism was more than a product of 19th century social and political reforms or even an attempt at using Islamic language to justify such reforms. Rather, Islamic modernism was a substantive theological reform movement, fueled by the belief that God's intent could be recovered through correct and contextual readings of the past. As a result, Islamic modernists  helped give rise not only to new understandings of Islam but also to new understandings of history. In our discussion, we draw on Dr. Ringer's book <i>Islamic Modernism and the Re-enchantment of the Sacred in the Age of History </i> out from Edinburgh University Press in 2020. In it, she takes up the work of four authors from across Eurasia: Namık Kemal from the Ottoman Empire, Ataullah Bayezidof from the Russian Empire, Syed Amir Ali from British India, and Jamal al-Din al-Afghani from Iran. Although they shared a religion, it was much more Islam that tied their ideas together. 

More at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2021/01/islamic-modernism.html

Monica Ringer is Professor of History and Asian Languages at Amherst College. Her research focuses on the history of religion, modernity, literature, and Islam across the Ottoman Empire, Iran, and the broader Islamic world.

Matthew Ghazarian is a Ph.D. Candidate in Columbia University's Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, African Studies. His research focuses on the intersections of sectarianism, humanitarianism, and famine in central and eastern Anatolia between 1839 and 1893.

Episode No. 491 
Release Date: 27 January 2021 
Recording Location: Sunderland, MA 
Audio editing by Matthew Ghazarian
Music: "Um Pepino" by Blue Dot Sessions 
Images and bibliography courtesy of Monica Ringer at https://www.ottomanhistorypodcast.com/2021/01/islamic-modernism.html

Recovering God's Intent in the Modern Age | Monica Ringer

Ottoman History Podcast

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