I’m very glad to be able to announce the resumption of normal services over on the Sources & Methods podcast. Matt and I took a break over the summer while I was away at Middlebury but we’re now back and excited to share a new set of interviews with interesting people doing interesting things.
For our first episode, we catch up with Will McCants whose book, The ISIS Apocalypse: The History, Strategy, and Doomsday Vision of the Islamic State, is about to hit the shelves. We start of with a discussion of the policy world and how it intersects with academia, moving on to ISIS, the study of Arabic as well as (small question) what keeps the cogs of history turning.
I really enjoyed chatting with Will for this episode and I’m really excited about the lineup we have for coming episodes. We’re recording a bunch of episodes ahead of time for logistical reasons but we’ll be releasing a new one every couple of weeks so as not to overload our regular listeners.
As always, you can subscribe to the show through iTunes and your preferred podcast client on a mobile/cellphone. For new listeners, I’d recommend checking out our back catalogue. My four favourite episodes (in chronological order:
- Erin Cunningham (#2): on reporting in the Middle East and Erin’s work in Gaza
- Mark Bernstein (#5): on the practicalities (and abstractions) of note-taking and working with information
- Rohini Mohan (#9): on writing non-fiction and the difficulties of covering Sri Lanka as a journalist and researcher
- Andrew Abbott (#15): on working with information in the twenty-first century and the use of libraries
For new listeners, I hope you can take the time to check out some of our old episodes. There’s a lot of useful information and thinking-through of difficult issues that repay (re-)listening. If you’re already subscribed, thank you and please help us by letting your friends and colleagues know about our work. Thanks!