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Media Views

Curious about what interculturalists are saying in books, blogs and podcasts?

Your Unconscious Biases. Exploring The Mind Through Art and Neuroscience. By Patrick L Schmidt

Your Unconscious Biases. Exploring The Mind Through Art and Neuroscience. By Patrick L Schmidt

While unconscious bias is a popular diversity training topic, unfortunately, it often offends, particularly those who hear it as an accusation of their behavior rather than learning about it as an essential human function for well-being in the worlds we live in. It’s a core piece of our mental functioning that needs to be understood, used, and managed. Schmidt’s book will help you do this and many other things as well.

diversophy® Podcast

diversophy® Podcast

Join George Simons, the founder of diversophy®, and Quinten Nobbe as they, along with their team, discuss the intricacies of human interactions across borders, and share their expertise and experiences with those interested in the subject.

Breaking out of the Expat Bubble by Marian van Bakel

Breaking out of the Expat Bubble by Marian van Bakel

“Breaking out of the bubble” is an excellent way to describe the multifaceted challenge that many new expats face. Often, even unconsciously they create a bubble for themselves, “for safety’s sake”. Leaving home and familiar environments for the unknown can be scary, particularly if one has little preparation for it and mistakes can be costly. Now, a very useful handbook has arrived!

The book is an interesting read, because it is replete with stories, resulting from discussions and interviews that the author has had with a variety of expats about their experiences in different countries, making it possible to understand how making friends may be easier or more difficult given the culture and social structure.

Mean Girl Feminism: How White Feminists Gaslight, Gatekeep, and Girlboss. By Kim Hong Nguyen. University of Illinois Press, 2024

Mean Girl Feminism: How White Feminists Gaslight, Gatekeep, and Girlboss. By Kim Hong Nguyen. University of Illinois Press, 2024

We live at a time when the subjective fabricates the objective, and this has become blatantly obvious in two areas. The first is entertainment – film, theater, popular music, and their penetration of social media. The second is populist political rhetoric where identity discourse, often based on survival fears, determines the issues, the actions, and the outcomes of legal and social structuring, likewise, exacerbating social media.

Fortunately, Kim Hong Nguyen’s book is not just another academic thesis about the roots and nature of feminism. It is far more than that. Nguyen has dared to do what most cultural, researchers, and diversity gurus avoid, namely, looking at how pop culture penetrates lives in so many ways and do so because we imagine that we can circumvent it. While not at all avoiding traditional and serious academic research into the issues of feminism, she brings them to life by copiously citing illustrations and expressions of them in the realms of popular culture, and how they illustrate the personhood of women who give substance to the questions and perspectives on feminism that Nguyen offers.

MERICS podcast interview: A 25-minute intercultural negotiation masterclass

Should we be afraid of lasting silence in intercultural negotiations? Will Sun Tsu’s ancient manual The Art of War help negotiators get great deals with China? Most importantly, does culture play a role in international negotiations at all?

Although the MERICS (The Mercator Institute for China Studies ) podcasts can be a bit too technical for the audience with limited exposure to China and its politics and macroeconomics (and quite addictive otherwise) the MERICS interview with Wuttke makes this complex topic accessible to all providing them with easily digestible soundbites that will serve them well in negotiations for a long time, even if they never set foot in China.

The Deep Culture Podcast

The Deep Culture Podcast

As we continue introducing podcasts from the intercultural communications field, here is the Deep Culture Podcast that “explores the psychological impact of intercultural experiences, informed by the sciences of brain, culture and mind.”

Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982

Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982

A compelling story about the character Kim Ji-young who faces the difficulties of growing up as a woman and motherhood in Korean society. Ji-young may be fictional, but is presented in the book as a realistic individual representing many women with a similar fate in Korea.