Please Note: There's a slight 10 second lag in the beginning. 

A conversation between Feng-Mei Heberer and Juan Llamas-Rodriguez that took place on February 1st, 2024, 5:30 pm at the Raah Lab (FB 630.17). Two of the foremost scholars working in the field of media and migration studies today, they spoke about their recently published books, Asians on Demand: Mediating Race in Video Art and Activism and Border Tunnels: A Media Theory of the US-Mexico Underground.

More about the books: 
Feng-Mei Heberer’s Asians on Demand: Mediating Race in Video Art and Activism aims to investigate the relations between representation and racial justice through an engagement with an archive of queer, feminist activist videos by Asian filmmakers situated in Germany, Taiwan, United States and Spain. Analyzing video texts by Hito Steyerl, Ming Wong, Miko Cevereza, Kristina Wong’s performance art, experimental video diaries by migrant workers and documentaries by Taiwan International Workers Association, the book provides a critique of neoliberalism’s demand of accessible visibility of Asians, situating it within digital video’s position as exemplary on demand technology.
Available for purchase here: https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/asians-on-demand

Juan Llamas-Rodriguez’s Border Tunnels: A Media theory of the US-Mexico Underground analyzes a range of media and technologies, including cable news, reality television, video games and speculative design to uncover their implicit positions on the geopolitics of the US-Mexico border. Taking the tunnels between US and Mexico as a medium for thinking infrastructurally of the border, the book engages with media texts, industrial and technological practices to examine the underlying logics of racialization and securitization of the borderlands and the physical and conceptual affordances provided by tunnels to understand a world of borders.
Available for purchase here: https://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/border-tunnels

Bios:
Juan Llamas-Rodriguez is Assistant Professor of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on media cultures, digital technologies, border studies, infrastructure studies and Latin American media. His work has appeared in the journals Social Text, Feminist Media Histories, Television & New Media, Lateral, Catalyst: Feminism, Theory, Technoscience, Popular Communication and the Journal of Cinema and Media Studies, as well as several edited collections. He is a member of the Global Internet TV Consortium, a network of media scholars studying internet-distributed screen content, and co-lead of The Migrant Steps Project, a public humanities initiative that prompts walking reflections through engagement with curated narratives about migration.

Feng-Mei Heberer is Assistant Professor of Cinema Studies at New York University. Her research focuses on questions of labor, transnational migration, Asian diaspora, at the confluence of queer studies, feminist studies and critical area studies. Her work has appeared in Sexualities, Camera Obscura, The Autobiographical Turn in German Documentary and Experimental Film, and Asian Video Cultures, among others.

Tunnel Visions And Video Activisms with Feng - Mei Heberer And Juan Llamas - Rodriguez

Today we continue our mini-series called the FreshEd Questionnaire. I’ve been asking guests a set of standard questions after each interview. These questions focus on some of the hottest topics in education today. 

For the next instalment of the FreshEd Questionnaire we focus on the value of enrolling into a PhD program. Is investing years of your life to purse a PhD worth it? While many of our guests find personal fulfilment in doctoral journeys, they're also brutally honest about the structural problems plaguing higher education today: exploitative funding models, unsustainable debt loads, and academic job markets that have fundamentally shifted. We dig into these issues and explore the tension between the intellectual rewards of doctoral study and the harsh economic realities that make the PhD increasingly inaccessible.

Guests include: Rakesh Rajani, Lynn Paine, Laura Chávez-Moreno, Augustina Paglayan, Xavier Dumay, Tore Bernt Sorensen, Horward Gardner, Gustavo Fischman, Sara Ruto, Brad Olsen, Tim Jackson, and Katie Anderson-Levitt.

https://freshedpodcast.com/395-questionnaire/
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FreshEd #395 – The FreshEd Questionnaire, Vol. 10 (Value of a PhD)

This episode is about love. What does it mean to study love ethnographically and analytically? How might we speak of love, especially in today’s social and political climate? In dialogue with Dr Omar Kasmani, whose work explores migrant loves and intimacies in Berlin, we trace the hopes, heartbreaks, and potentialities that love can hold for field research and ethnographic writing. Bridging the subjective and the objective, the personal and the shared, the inward and the outward, love remains a concept as powerful as it is perplexing. We hope this conversation encourages a more deliberate investigation of love within our discipline, and highlights its richness and complexity as an essential lens for ethnographic inquiry.

80. A Dialogue on Love: Writing Through Migrant Belonging

FreshEd turns 10 in October! Join the celebration: www.freshedpodcast.com/10years
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Today we continue our mini-series called the FreshEd Questionnaire. I’ve been asking guests a set of standard questions after each interview. These questions focus on some of the hottest topics in education today. 

For the next instalment of the FreshEd Questionnaire we focus on online learning. It seems since Covid-19, universities around the world have embraced online learning. More recently, we hear talk of flexible learning. That is, giving students a choice in how they want to study-- either online, in person, or a bit of both. What does online and flexible learning mean for the university? For the quality of education? And for the very nature of learning itself? I asked a group of academics and researchers the following questions: What are your thoughts on universities embracing online/hybrid/flexible teaching?

Here's what they had to say.

Guests include: Rakesh Rajani, Lynn Paine, Laura Chávez-Moreno, Augustina Paglayan, Xavier Dumay, Daniela Romero, Tore Bernt Sorensen, Paula Mantilla-Blanco, Gustavo Fischman, Sara Ruto, Brad Olsen, Stephanie Kim, Tim Jackson, and Katie Anderson-Levitt

freshedpodcast.com/396-questionnaire/
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FreshEd #396 – The FreshEd Questionnaire, Vol. 11 (Online Learning)

In this 10th - and last - episode of the Peace Corner Podcast season 9, our host Eugénie Hirsch, intern at CSPPS, discusses with Gina McIntyre, chief executive of the Special EU Programmes Body. Together, they explore the question of peacebuilding in Northern Ireland, and the effects the peace programmes have on young people.

Drawing from her experience, Gina offers her insights on different issues such as mental health, trauma and healing but also on management of the peace fund and the necessity of youth involvement in the peace programmes.

This episode dives into the question of resolution 2250, whether it has had an impact for the people working in the field, and what could be concrete ways to improve the way forward.
Highlighting the vital role of youth in peace processes, this episode sheds light on the reality of peacebuilding in Northern Ireland, and the difficulties the population is still facing.

Don’t miss out on this insightful conversation, tune in now!

The 9th season of the Peace Corner Podcast is an initiative of CSPPS & UNOY Peacebuilders.

3 decades of peacebuilding: Young people as the ‘right now’ for long lasting peace in Northern Ireland (S09 E10)

FreshEd turns 10 in October! Join the celebration: www.freshedpodcast.com/10years
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Today is the last installment for this year in our mini-series called the FreshEd Questionnaire. I’ve been asking guests a set of standard questions after each interview. These questions focus on some of the hottest topics in education today. 

For today’s episode of the FreshEd Questionnaire we focus on future directions in research. I always love to hear where scholars think research should go in the future. There are so many opinions and ideas. I hope this will be valuable to PhD students or early career researchers looking for some inspiration. I asked a group of academics and researchers the following question: Where would you like to see education research go in the future?
Here's what they had to say.

Guests include: Rakesh Rajani, Lynn Paine, Laura Chávez-Moreno, Augustina Paglayan, Xavier Dumay, Daniela Romero, Tore Bernt Sorensen, Horward Gardner, Paula Mantilla-Blanco, Gustavo Fischman, Sara Ruto, Brad Olsen, Stephanie Kim, Tim Jackson, Katie Anderson-Levitt, and Garnett Russell.

freshedpodcast.com/397-questionnaire/
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FreshEd #397 – The FreshEd Questionnaire, Vol. 12 (Future Research Directions)

Today you’ll hear Liberty Chee speak with two scholars whose research focuses on musicians who have been displaced from their homelands. 

Rose Campion looks at what the music industry can teach us about migration policy. Her ethnographic research explores how forced migrants from all over the world build their careers as professional musicians in Germany. She talks about how they try to ‘make it’, and how these experiences complicate the perception that “music is a universal language that brings everyone together”.

We also have Louis Brehony, who, starting as a musician and fan, found his way to Palestinian music and the people who make this art both in the MENA region and around the world. He has now researched the topic academically for over a decade. He speaks about how concepts from Palestinian culture translate into music – and how “traditional” sounds and newer evolutions of style are marked by place and migration.

Rose Campion is a PhD student at the University of Oxford's Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (“COMPAS”) in the UK. She studies the creative and social impacts of music-making by forced migrants.

And

Louis Brehony is an activist, musician, educator, and independent scholar who is an expert on Palestinian music. He received his PhD from Kings College London and his book "Palestinian Music in Exile: Voices of resistance" is based on 10 years of fieldwork and focuses on Palestinians dispersed in the MENA region. He is also a member of the Gazelleband. 

The music at the end of the episode is the track “Salla Fina al-Lahz”, from the Gazelleband’s EP “Rihla #2”. It was composed by Sayyid Dawish and performed by Gazelleband: https://gazelleband.com/home 

Further reading provided by the interviewees:
1. Campion, Rose and Sheyda Ghavami. (2024). Kurdische Musikerinnen in Deutschland: Ein Song-und Storybook. Landesmusikrat NRW.
2. Louis Brehony, Palestinian Music in Exile: Voices of Resistance, AUC Press, 2023.
3. Ghassan Kanafani, Selected Political Writings, Pluto Press, 2024.
4. Louis Brehony, “Music and the Gaza Genocide,” Journal of Performance Studies, Summer2025.
5. Louis Brehony, “Exile Songwriters of the Palestinian Revolution (and the Problem with Sugar Man),” Arab Studies Quarterly, Winter 2023.

Louis would like to thank Reem Anbar (oud player with Gazelleband) and Tahrir Hamdi (Co-editor of Ghassan Kanafani: Selected Political Writings) for their contributions to the work he speaks about in this episode.



Ep6(S5) Making Resonance: Forced Migrants and Music Across Borders

Today we dive into universities and their futures. For many people, universities are in crisis. Public funding has decreased. Mounting pressure to move online and offer complete flexibility to students. Job cuts. And whole courses and programs that are on the chopping block. My guest, Cris Shore, unpacks the state of universities and critically explores their futures.

Cris Shore is emeritus professor of anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London. He’s recently published a book with Susan Wright called Audit Culture: How indicators and rankings are reshaping the world.

freshedpodcast.com/shore/
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FreshEd #398 – University Futures (Cris Shore)

In this episode, David and James sit down with Jaz Ampaw-Farr to talk about her powerful new book Because of You, This is Me: The stories we tell, the stories we change and the power of everyday heroes. We explore the big themes of the book, including:
The lies we’ve agreed to and how to rewrite them
Why we need a new vocabulary for education
And the everyday heroes who changed the ending for Jaz
Along the way we also touch on the importance of listening to voices of lived experience – a conversation that was sparked by Darren McGarvey’s work and led to some of Jaz’s most insightful reflections.
This episode is a rich mix of personal story, educational insight and practical wisdom.
Links and resources:

Jaz’s book: https://www.crownhouse.co.uk/because-of-you-this-is-me 

Jaz’s TEDx talk ‘The power of everyday heroes’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3xoZXSW5yc 

Jaz’s website: https://jazampawfarr.com/ 

Find out more about the Open School: https://www.theopenschool.uk/ 

Enjoyed the episode?

Please subscribe, leave a review, and share the episode with a friend or colleague. You can also support the podcast on Patreon: https://patreon.com/repod 

Outro track: ‘How it is and how it should be’ by Grit Control: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1ud69RIV1eOV9poMR7AORI 

The Rethinking Education podcast is brought to you by Crown House Publishing. It is hosted by Dr James Mannion and David Cameron, and produced by Sophie Dean.



“We need a new language!" Jaz Ampaw-Farr on hope, trauma tourism and teachers as everyday heroes

Thanks for listening to FreshEd. It’s rewarding to produce for the thousands of listeners around the world. But it takes a lot of work to make regular episodes. What sustains our effort are voluntary memberships from paying supporters. If you are enjoying FreshEd and would like to join our membership community, please sign up at www.freshedpodcast.com. You can also sign up to join our 10th anniversary celebration on October 18.

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Today we explore ed-tech philanthropy inside schools in South Africa. My guest is Amy Stambach. Amy Stambach is Professor of Anthropology and International Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her new book is The Corporate Alibi: Capitalism and the Cultural Politics of US Investments in Africa, which was published by the University of California Press. 

freshedpodcast.com/stambach/
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FreshEd #399 – EdTech Philanthropy in South Africa (Amy Stambach)

Today marks the 400th episode of FreshEd. That’s almost 10 years of work. It’s been an absolute privilege to make each episode. Sometimes I think I’m the luckiest person in academia because I get to talk about new ideas in education every week. Of course none of this would be possible without you, our listeners. So thanks for tuning in each week.

To mark this occasion, I wanted to spend time with another podcaster to talk about why we love podcasting so much. My guest is Sadie Ryan. Her podcast Accentricity was shortlisted for Best New Podcast at the British Podcast Awards and won the Steady International Media Award in 2019. 

Sadie Ryan is a lecturer in Languages and Intercultural Studies in the School of Education at the University of Glasgow. She is founder and coordinator of the University of Glasgow Podcasting Collective.  

freshedpodcast.com/ryan/
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FreshEd #400 - Podcasting With Love (Sadie Ryan)

Media Research Lab based in Concordia University. Working with scholars, activists and community partners to study media and migration.