Whether you're looking for syllabus suggestions or whether you're an independent reader looking for continuous learning inspiration, here are suggestions of free teachable podcast episodes and the books they pair with from University of Minnesota Press.

MATERIAL CULTURE

Podcast episode: Edith Wharton and the personal library with author Sheila Liming (What a Library Means to a Woman), Wharton scholar Donna Campbell, and Nynke Dorhout and Anne Schuyler of The Mount in Lenox, MA.

Subjects: Edith Wharton; book history; material and print culture; histories of collecting; late 19th and early 20th-century American culture; libraries and self-making; women's history; women's education; history of the book

MENTAL HEALTH

Podcast episodes: A three-part mental health series featuring author Mindy Greiling (Fix What You Can: Schizophrenia and a Lawmaker's Fight for Her Son) in conversation with: (1) Minnesota Public Radio's Alisa Roth on the criminalization of mental illness; (2) Dr. George Realmuto, psychiatry professor at the University of Minnesota, on mental illness and substance abuse; and (3) Jim Trepp, author of Lodge Magic, on recovery and better futures for persons with mental illness.

Download: A 30-page study guide with information on understanding symptoms, discussion questions, and resources.

Subjects: psychology, psychiatry, social work, mental health system, nursing, chemical dependency, criminalization of mental illness, public policy

CONSUMER CULTURE AND THE ENVIRONMENT

Podcast episode: The case for taking objects seriously with authors Christine Harold (Things Worth Keeping) and Nicole Seymour (Bad Environmentalism).

Subjects: environmental governance; eco-narratives; consumer culture; materiality studies; design studies; maker culture; environmental rhetoric; thing theory

RACIAL INJUSTICE

Podcast episodes:
-Miscarriage and infant loss are experiences that disproportionately affect Indigenous women and woman of color. Contributors to What God Is Honored Here? speak about the traumas and tragedies of womanhood: co-editors Shannon Gibney and Kao Kalia Yang and writers Michelle Borok, Soniah Kamal, Jami Nakamura Lin, and Seema Reza.
-Creative writing as a powerful tool for challenging racism: Carolyn Holbrook, author of Tell Me Your Names and I Will Testify, in conversation with Sherrie Fernandez-Williams, author of Soft: A Memoir.
-How digital technology has further entrenched the United States' racialized policing and punishment: author Brian Jefferson (Digitize and Punish: Racial Criminalization in the Digital Age) in conversation with editor Pieter Martin.

Subjects: race, antiracism, structural racism, racial equity, social justice, women's studies, social work, nursing, creative writing, race and the criminal justice system

MIXING EARTH SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

Podcast episodes:
-Scientists and humanists talk timescales and climate change, featuring contributors to Timescales: Thinking across Ecological Temporalities: Bethany Wiggin, director of the Penn Program in Environmental Humanities; oceanographer Frankie Pavia; law student Jason Bell; and geophysicist Jane Dmochowski.
-Hope and art when the world is falling apart features contributors to An Ecotopian Lexicon: anthropologist and herbalist Charis Boke, visual artist Michelle Kuen Suet Fung, and Sam Solnick of the University of Liverpool.
-On deep time, extinction, and reframing our relationship with geological time with David Farrier, author of Anthropocene Poetics, and Adam Dickinson, author of Anatomic.
-During a time when 90% of the world's big fish are gone, Jen Telesca (Red Gold) illustrates the managed extinction of the giant bluefin tuna in a conversation with editor Jason Weidemann.

Subjects: environmental humanities, climate change, the Anthropocene, ecology, sustainability, anthropology, environment and society, ecocriticism, deep time, extinction studies, ocean resource management