In this week’s episode, Anurag discusses the history of colors, such as indigo and carmine, and how they can help us understand what the world was like in the past. Christina talks about a few incidents of white people in the West starting busi...

In this episode, Anurag and Christina talk to Dr. Samantha Chisholm Hatfield about Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK). How do indigenous people develop and use TEK to thrive along with nature, rather than exploiting it? We also discuss thin...

Christina and Anurag talk to Dr. Teevrat Garg about how people are being affected by rising temperatures, and how they might adapt as temperatures around the world rise in the coming decades. Dr. Garg talks to us about various research studies ...

This week, Christina and Anurag discuss how influencer and data-driven shopping apps have supercharged e-commerce around the world. Christina takes the example of fast fashion to illustrate how new technologies and parasocial relationships with...

In this episode, we talk about the modern history of coffee, its relationship with the environment and the people who grow it, and how all this affects the coffee we drink. We speak to Dr. Stuart McCook, professor of world history a...

In this episode, we speak to Kyle Moody, an associate professor of communications media at Fitchburg State University, about the role that local news played during the pandemic. We also discuss the decline of local news and closures of news out...

Christina and Anurag discuss how boba, or bubble tea, made its way from Taiwan to the US, and how chai has done the same from India. How has boba tea remained a drink mostly sold by and for Asians, while chai, like yoga and golden milk (turmeri...

This week we're joined by anthropologist Dr. Sarah Besky of Cornell University to discuss the colonial history of tea and the people who produce it. Her research uses ethnographic and historical methods to study the intersection of inequality, ...

Why is everyone suddenly interested in GameStop stock, bitcoin, and NFTs? Why are people gathering in the millions to coordinate their investments? New apps like Robinhood have made investing simple for almost anyone. What does this tell us abo...

In this episode, we talk about three different fan cultures. We discuss how K-pop and C-pop fans organize online to support their idols. Then, we talk about Tollywood fans (that is, fans of the Telugu film industry in India) who are much smalle...

We speak to Dr. Nidhi Gonnakuti and Rohith Vedira, a civil contractor building COVID-19 facilities, about their experiences as frontline workers during the deadly second wave in India. We also talk about the vaccine shortage, super-spreader eve...

In this episode, Christina and Anurag discuss the inadequacies of new terms in American English to describe life during the pandemic. If you’re also sick of ‘pandemic wall,’ Christina gives examples of words in other languages that better captu...

This week, we're in conversation with Dr. Michael Svoboda, a professor of writing at George Washington University, to discuss how the climate crisis is depicted in movies and books. We talk about why movies aren’t exactly inspiring...

In this week's episode, we revisit surveillance systems with Karen Li Xan Wong and look at how governments and corporations use our data to track us. She explains how these systems are all around us and all around the world.There have b...

In this episode, we chat with psychiatrist Sharat Vallurupalli about his time treating patients during COVID-19 and how we should be rethinking what 'health' means. Is the rise of people seeking therapy because there is more awareness about men...

The ‘social credit system’ in China has people worried about the dystopian future that is unfolding. But what actually is the system in China, and what does Western media get wrong about it? Are there similar types of systems all around us that...

This episode, Christina talks about anti-Asian violence as a Chinese American, the lack of cohesion in the Asian American community, and why she doesn’t think anti-Asian hate will end anytime soon. Anurag talks about how he thinks ...

We introduce ourselves, talk about why we're making this podcast, and go over some of the topics we'll be covering.