The only downside to using a feed reader (Bloglines, Google Reader, MyYahoo, etc.) to access Open Culture
is that you won’t be able to see our podcast directories which reside
in our left nav bar. To assist you, we have pasted links below that
will give you direct access to the podcast collections. We’ll post this reminder from time to time.
Along with Brazil, Russia is the other junior member of the BRICs (see Part 1 for more on the BRIC concept.)
While it’s not necessarily the country that’s first on America’s list of future economic competitors, it’s expected to be a player. And, if Goldman Sachs is right, Russia, a resource-rich nation, will overtake Italy’s economy in 2018; France’s in 2024; the UK’s in 2027 and Germany’s in 2028 — that’s assuming that none of its underlying problems (a declining population, Vladimir Putin’s heavy-handed politics, environmental deterioration, etc.) become too severe.
Throughout the Cold War, the Russian language was very in vogue. When the Wall fell in 1989, it faded. Now, if the economic predictions hold true, it could become the language of the future yet again. As of this moment, there’s no shortage of good podcasts that can get you speaking a little Russian. First, we’ll point you to A Spoonful of Russian (iTunes — Feed — Web Site). This well-reviewed podcast gives you a chance to learn conversational Russian from a native Russian speaker (Natalia Worthington), and when it comes to teaching the alphabet, they use video to teach Cyrillic letters.
Next, if you’re looking to do business in Russian, this podcast is for you. Simply called
Business Russian (iTunesFeedWeb Site) this series, presented by the UCLA Center for World Languages, teaches students, as you could guess, the essentials of Russian business communication. Finally, to give things a little more of an intellectual twist, we present
Russian Literature (iTunesFeed), another UCLA podcast that lets users improve their
comprehension and vocabulary by listening to excerpts from Tolstoy,
Gogol, Chekhov and other Russian literary greats.
Finally, if you’re looking for a more comprehensive approach to learning Russian, we’ve listed several products on the market in our new Amazon store.
According to a much discussed report by Goldman Sachs, the economies of Brazil, Russia, India, and China — or what they collectively call the BRICs— are rapidly growing and could overshadow today’s major economic powers (including the US) by 2050. What does that mean for you? One thing is for sure: To stay competitive in our globalized world, you’ll need to know more than English. And you’ll be particularly well served if you can speak the languages of the BRICs.
Over the coming week, we’ll point you to podcasts that will teach you some Portuguese, Russian, Hindi and Chinese. The podcasts are all free, and they make learning convenient and fun. Our coverage will start with Brazil and work its way through the acronym.
Brazil is South America’s sleeping giant. Expectations of this large, resource-rich country
have always been high, and while the optimistic scenarios haven’t panned out so far, the country’s fortunes may be about to change. According to the Goldman Sachs report, Brazil’s economy could overtake Italy by 2025; France by 2031; and the UK and Germany by 2036. There may be obstacles and detours along the way. But, for now, things seem to be inching in the right direction. And, no matter how things go, Brazil remains an outstanding place to travel, and, for that reason alone, it’s a good idea to pick up some Portuguese.
Once a colony of Portugal, Brazil is the only South American country that officially speaks Portuguese. But because Brazil’s population is so large (182,000,000), it turns out that Portuguese is the dominant language on the continent, although just barely. (51% speak Portuguese v. 49% Spanish.) The Portuguese spoken by Brazilians is not quite the same as the version spoken in Portugal itself. You’ll find differences in pronunciation, intonation, spelling, vocabulary, grammar, etc.
Today, we’re highlighting three series of podcasts/mp3’s that will get you up to speed:
First, we haveBrazilian Portuguese. It’s a homegrown introduction to Brazilian Portuguese, which will teach you the differences between the language spoken in Brazil and that in Portugal, and it will also give you an introduction to Brazilian culture. Mp3s for lessons 1–16 can be found here; audio files for lessons 17 and beyond can be accessed here. (The latter ones can also be located on iTunes.) Just as a general note, the podcast quality improves as the lessons get more advanced. So keep that in mind.
Second, we amazingly stumbled upon series of introductory lessons, collectively called Portuguese Programmatic Course, that was put together by the US Foreign Service, and they’re apparently now in the public domain. From this page, you can download pdf text files that accompany related audio files that you’ll need to download and unzip. The Foreign Service approach to teaching languages is generally very well regarded. Language lovers will definitely want to check out the full collection of Foreign Service language lessons here.
Third, we have “Ta Falado: Brazilian Portuguese Pronunciation for Spanish Speakers” (iTunesFeedWeb Site). This podcast is produced by the Language Technology Center in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at UT-Austin, and it helps students who know some Spanish make the transition to speaking Portuguese.
Finally, if you’d like to take things to the next level, then you can always check out some more comprehensive language learning systems out on the market. We’ve listed a few in our Amazon store.
Even if you don’t agree with its Euro conservative posture, The
Economist always comes off as
eminently rational and sensible when
grappling with political issues, and certainly unwilling to put spin
ahead of good reporting, which separates it from many of its American
counterparts. This judiciousness comes across in a talk given last week
by John Micklethwait, the magazine’s newly appointed Editor-in-Chief. (Access audio versions here.) Interviewed by Orville Schell, Dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at
UC-Berkeley,
Micklethwait covers a lot of ground, but spends a good deal of time
contemplating America’s role in the world, and particularly whether
America’s international leadership is now irretrievably broken. His common sense answers provide no red
meat for anyone on the left or right. But they’re thoughtful, and worth your time. (Just as an fyi, his talk doesn’t get started until about 10 minutes in, and he doesn’t get to international affairs until about the 29th minute.) Finally, on a related note, you may want to explore The Economist’s relatively new series of podcasts: iTunesFeed
Darden School of Business (The University of Virginia) iTunes — Feed — Web Site
Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders (Stanford University)iTunesFeedWeb Site
A series of weekly lectures on entrepreneurship jointly sponsored by several programs at Stanford. Features speakers from Google, Genentech, and Juniper Networks, among others.
Fuqua School of Business (Duke University)iTunesWeb Site
From the Harvard Business Review, this collection features leading thinkers in the business and management world.
Tomorrow’s Challenges present top-ranked business school IMD’s latest research results. Faculty discuss critical business topics such as leadership, innovation, change and governance. See www.imd.ch/tc for in depth articles.IMD Tomorrow’s Challenges PodcastAudio FeedVideo Feed
These two podcasts come out of one of Europe’s elite business programs.
Knowledge@Wharton Audio Articles (University of Pennsylvania)iTunesFeedWeb Site
An offshoot of the school’s online business journal called “Knowledge@Wharton.” Provides “audio articles” thatfeature high-profile executives and faculty, including several that highlight stock market guru Jeremy Siegel.
A series of audio and video podcasts sharing the latest in news and thought leadership from the London Business School, which is part of the University of London.
MBA Podcaster iTunesFeedWeb Site Information and advice for those looking to get into b‑school.
Obviously McKinsey is not a b‑school, but it’s the big kahuna consulting firm and they put out some informative podcasts. Here are ones from their high tech practice.
Some of the world’s leading business thinkers provide the latest thinking in economics, management, finance, strategy and marketing.
Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, Center for Digital Strategies iTunesFeedWeb Site
Radio Tuck brings you ground-breaking digital interviews, straight from the business leaders of today.
University of Chicago Graduate School of Business iTunesFeedWeb Site
Among other talks, you’ll encounter talks by Nobel Prize winner Gary Becker and also Steven Levitt, the co-author of the recent bestseller Freakonomics.
University of Michigan, Ross School of Business iTunesWeb Site
Sonny Rollins, who made his name with the acclaimed album Saxophone Colossus, has defied the
fate
of other jazz greats. He’s long outlived his important contemporaries – Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Thelonious Monk – and, at 76 years old, he’s still out there issuing new albums (the latest being Sonny, Please), and even new web videos.
Jazz fans will want to explore the new 12-part web video series that’s just being rolled out. Scheduled to be released in monthly installments (a new one on the 23rd of each month), the video series will “introduce Rollins, the man and his music, to new listeners,” using “musical performances, both current and classic, interviews and exclusive behind-the-scenes videos.” (See the full project description here.) Entitled “The Sonny Rollins Podcast,” the collection can be accessed on iTunes in video. But you can also find the videos on Youtube/Google Video if you don’t have (or know how to use) a video-enabled iPod. That may be the easiest way to go.
The first episode, “On The Road with Sonny,” just came out in the past few weeks, and it features “behind the scenes rehearsal footage from two late 2006 Arizona concerts.” You can watch it below. If you want to continue following the series, then just visit sonnyrollins.com toward the end of each month, and they’ll post each new installment.
Several months ago, The New York Times ran a rather striking piece
detailing how key US leaders
— ones playing integral roles in the war
on terror and the war in Iraq — couldn’t explain the basic difference between a Shiite and a Sunni. The disclosure, however, wasn’t terribly
surprising. We were, after all, already several years into fighting a war that was premised on seeing only rosy scenarios, not inconvenient details or
hard realities on the ground.
Reality is nowadays coming back with a vengeance, talk about
civil war and a Sunni-Shiite divide has entered our
political vocabulary, and we’re finally doing the homework that we should
have done years ago. This week, NPR’s Morning Edition has put together a helpful five-part series, called “The Partisans of Ali: A History of Shia Faith and Politics,”
that explores the historical divisions between Shia and Sunni Muslims,
giving particular attention to the Shiites themselves. If you haven’t
already, you might as well bone up on this material, since it will shape our national experience for years to come, regardless of how
many exit-plans are being drawn up right now. All programs can be
downloaded as mp3’s. A general overview of the series (which has a lot
of good supporting materials) can be found here. Meanwhile, you can access the individual daily programs below:
This is a podcast compilation that we almost wish we had put together. The “Public Radio Podcast Catalogue” amazingly gives you access to over 900 public radio programs podcasted from around the globe, all of which are broken down into neat categories – Business, Culture, Literature, Music, News, Politics, etc. Quite conveniently, the organizers of this collection have provided a link to each individual podcast feed. So you only need to find the podcast you like – whether its Fresh Air, Car Talk, BBC News, or whatever podcast exists in the public radio universe – then paste the feed link into a podcasting program such as iTunes or Juice, and you’ll be on your way to downloading, syncing and absorbing endless amounts of enlightening radio content.
See Open Culture’s podcast collections: Arts & Culture;
Speaking recently on Stanford’s campus, Reza Aslan, an Iranian-American scholar who has written for The New York Times, The Nation, and Slate, sketched out an interesting framework for making sense of recent trends within the Middle East, and more particularly within Islam itself (iTunes — feed N/A). His argument is essentially this: Islam is undergoing a reformation that’s not terribly unlike the one Christianity underwent in the 16th century. Within Islam, we see individuals arrogating power from the clerical establishment, interpreting Islam for themselves, and attempting to return it to a more pure and original form. And what’s driving all of this are three social and technological innovations. First, the translation of the Koran into many new languages, which has made it accessible to widespread populations, including non-Arabic-speaking people, for the first time. Second, the participation in reformist movements by Muslims from the West, who bring their own individualistic perspectives to the religion. Third and most importantly, the invention of the Internet, which, much like the printing press during the 16th century, has empowered new arbiters of Islamic law. Through the internet, new thinkers can get their ideas out there in unprecedented ways, mobilize support behind a new body of religious ideas, and compete effectively with the old religious order.
It is within this general context of reformation that Aslan places Usama bin Laden. Although the Islamic reformation has been shaped by many moderate and progressive figures, there are, as with all reformations, more radical figures who challenge the traditional religious institutions and will resort to a pathological kind of violence if necessary. In this instance, Aslan sees similarities between bin Laden and more radical figures of the Protestant Reformation. Give the talk a listen. And let yourself get past the first 10 minutes because it starts a little slowly.
We love finding these vintage media gems. Last week, we served up Orson Welles’ famous radio broadcast from 1938. This week, we’ve got another one — Malcolm X speaking at Oxford University in 1964.In this classic speech, you get a good feel for Malcolm X’s presence and message, not to mention the social issues that were alive during the day. You’ll hear X’s trademark claim that liberty can be attained by “whatever means necessary,” including force, if the government won’t guarantee it, and that “intelligently directed extremism” will achieve liberty far more effectively than pacifist strategies. (He’s clearly alluding to Martin Luther King.) You can listen to the speech in its entirety here (Real Audio), something that is well worth doing. But we’d also encourage you to watch (see below) the dramatic closing minutes and pay some attention to the nice rhetorical slide, to how we get from Hamlet’s doubts (“To be or not to be”) to taking up arms:
“I read once, passingly, about a man named Shakespeare. I only read about him passingly, but I remember one thing he wrote that kind of moved me. He put it in the mouth of Hamlet, I think, it was, who said, ‘To be or not to be.’ He was in doubt about something—whether it was nobler in the mind of man to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune—moderation—or to take up arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them. And I go for that. If you take up arms, you’ll end it, but if you sit around and wait for the one who’s in power to make up his mind that he should end it, you’ll be waiting a long time. And in my opinion, the young generation of whites, blacks, browns, whatever else there is, you’re living at a time of extremism, a time of revolution, a time when there’s got to be a change. People in power have misused it, and now there has to be a change and a better world has to be built, and the only way it’s going to be built—is with extreme methods. And I, for one, will join in with anyone—I don’t care what color you are—as long as you want to change this miserable condition that exists on this earth.”
We have a short interview airing today on Future Tense, an American Public Media program hosted by Jon Gordon. This program offers a daily journal of the digital age, and today we’re talking about the past, present and future of audio books, particularly the podcasted kind. The conversation weaves together a few things that we’ve discussed here this week — H.G. Wells, Cory Doctorow, Creative Commons, the skewed pricing of audio books sold to consumers, etc. If you don’t catch it on the radio, you can listen in here: MP3 — iTunes — Blog.
On a related note, we also talked with Future Tense not too long ago about what universities are doing on the podcast front. If you want to give it a listen, you can access it here: Mp3 — Blog.
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Several months ago, 
