Social Science Bites

Welcome to the blog for the Social Science Bites podcast: a series of interviews with leading social scientists. Each episode explores an aspect of our social world. You can access all audio and the transcripts from each interview here. Don’t forget to follow us on Twitter @socialscibites.

Kathelijne Koops looks over green vista in Nimba Mountains

Kathelijne Koops on Chimps and Tools

Kathelijne Koops, a biological anthropologist at the University of Zurich, works to determine what makes us human. And she approaches this quest by intensely studying the use of tools by other species across sub-Saharan Africa.

1 year ago
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Joel Mokyr

Joel Mokyr on Economic Lessons from the Past

In this podcast, Northwestern University’s Joel , Mokyr tells interviewer Dave Edmonds, “I use economics to understand history, and I use history to understand economics.”

1 year ago
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Karin Barber

Karin Barber on Verbal Arts

In this Social Science Bites podcast, social anthropologist Karin Barber offers a specific case study of the application of the verbal arts by examining in depth some of the genres common in the Yoruba-speaking areas of Western Africa.

1 year ago
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Melanie Simms

Melanie Simms on Work

COVID-19 has changed everything, including how we work (and to be more precise, are employed). But in order to best […]

1 year ago
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Jeffrey Ian Ross

Jeffrey Ian Ross on Convict Criminology

Jeffrey Ian Ross, a professor in the School of Criminal Justice at the University of Baltimore, is one of the originators of the concept of ‘convict criminology.’

1 year ago
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Molefi Kete Asante

Molefi Kete Asante on Afrocentrism

In this Social Science Bites podcast, Molefi Kete Asante offers an insiders view of the growth of the Afrocentric paradigm, from the founding of the Journal of Black Studies a half century ago to the debates over critical race theory today.

2 years ago
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Jennifer Richeson

Jennifer Richeson on Perceptions of Racial Inequality

There is inequality in the United States, a fact most people accept and which data certainly bears out. But how bad do you think that inequality is, say, based on comparing the wealth held by the average Black person in America and the average white person?

2 years ago
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Jennifer Lee

Jennifer Lee on Asian Americans

The twin prods of a U.S. president trying to rebrand the coronavirus as the ‘China virus’ and a bloody attack in Atlanta that left six Asian women dead have brought to the fore a spate of questions about Asian Americans in the United States.
Sociologist Jennifer Lee is answering those questions.

2 years ago
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Martha Newsom

Martha Newson on Identity Fusion

Martha Newson, linked to the universities of Oxford and Kent, describes how fans of football often fuse their own identities into a tightly bonded group (even as they retain their individuality).

2 years ago
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Olivier Sibony

Olivier Sibony on Decision-Making

In the context of human action, management professor at HEC Paris and former McKinsey senior partner Olivier Sibony defines “noise” as the unwanted variability in human judgment.

2 years ago
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