Uncommon Sense
Episodes
Being Seen, with Shahram Khosravi
20 Mar 2026
Contributed by Lukas
**Note: this episode was recorded in late 2025, prior to the extremely violent suppression of protests in Iran, and prior to the strikes by the US and...
Gifts, with Sophie Woodward
23 Jan 2026
Contributed by Lukas
Why do we keep gifts that we don’t want, or can’t currently use? What role do these play in our relationships with others, with time, and perhaps ...
Inheritance, with Delwar Hussain
19 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
“What is the effect of receiving something from someone who is not your biological kin?” Anthropologist Delwar Hussain introduces his new project ...
Maternal, with Babalwa Magoqwana
21 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How have maternal - and grandmaternal - ways of knowing been sidelined and undervalued? What role has sociology’s focus on its ‘founding fathers’...
Desire, with Angelique Nixon
24 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What’s behind the reductive pursuit of “paradise” in travel to the Caribbean? How does tourism continue the legacy of colonialism? And how is th...
BONUS: Len Garrison, Archives and Self-Esteem – from ‘Sideways Sociology: UK Anti-Racism’
03 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A bonus offering for Uncommon Sense listeners! We’re sharing our mini-series, Sideways Sociology: UK Anti-Racism, in which three experts introduce u...
BONUS: Gerlin Bean and Black British Feminist Socialism – from ‘Sideways Sociology: UK Anti-Racism’
03 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A bonus offering for Uncommon Sense listeners! We’re sharing our mini-series, Sideways Sociology: UK Anti-Racism, in which three experts introduce u...
BONUS: Ambalavaner Sivanandan, Tech and Anti-Racism – from ‘Sideways Sociology: UK Anti-Racism’
03 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
A bonus offering for Uncommon Sense listeners! We’re sharing our mini-series, Sideways Sociology: UK Anti-Racism, in which three experts introduce u...
Love & Reproduction, with Alva Gotby
19 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Made tea for your partner today? Helped a vulnerable neighbour? You may have been performing what Alva Gotby calls “emotional reproduction” – th...
Childhood, with Brenda Herbert
25 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How do stereotypes of “the child” contribute to injustice? Why must we decolonise childhood? What can it mean to work with love, rather than just ...
Free Speech, with Aaron Winter
27 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How is the notion of “free speech” abused and misunderstood? What’s wrong with “debate me” culture – and with the value placed on appearin...
Revolution, with Volodymyr Ishchenko
06 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
The word “revolution” conjures powerful imagery. But what does it mean today? Do revolutions neatly promote the will of the people, forging radica...
Sideways Sociology: UK Anti-Racism – Trailer
21 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Hi everyone!The next episode of Uncommon Sense is landing here soon, but for now, we want to tell you about our brand new podcast, Sideways Sociology:...
Fat, with Fady Shanouda
18 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
How do we typically see fat, and how can thinking differently about it have emancipatory outcomes? Fady Shanouda of Carleton University’s Feminist I...
Scars, with Ellen T. Meiser
21 Mar 2025
Contributed by Lukas
From TV’s “The Bear” to the simmering restaurant thriller “Boiling Point” we seem drawn to angry-but-vulnerable chefs in pop culture. But ho...
Joy, with Akwugo Emejulu
24 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What comes to mind when you think about joy? And can there be joy in protest and refusal? Someone who’s been asking and trying to answer questions a...
Voice, with Claire Alexander, Dan McCulloch and Belinda Scarlett
20 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
With so many platforms available to share information, there are more means than ever to make a noise. But in the spirit of free speech and academic f...
Life Admin, with Oriana Bernasconi
29 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Life admin often refers to the overwhelming and mundane paperwork that surrounds contemporary living. However, Oriana Bernasconi, a sociology professo...
Toxic, with Alice Mah
01 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What comes to mind when we think about toxicity in everyday life? It could be toxic relationships or masculinity – through to consumption, waste, go...
Margins, with Rhoda Reddock
27 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What gets centred and what gets framed as marginal? Who decides? And what are the consequences? UN expert, feminist scholar and social historian Rhoda...
Community, with Kirsteen Paton
19 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What’s meant – and who’s excluded – when community is invoked? Does membership take more than presence alone? How can seeing local crises thro...
Coffee Culture, with Grazia Ting Deng
21 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Think you know “coffee culture”? Anthropologist Grazia Ting Deng discusses her research into the “paradox of Chinese Espresso” – or why and ...
Making, with Kat Jungnickel
17 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What does it mean to make things? Why are some people valorised as “makers”, while others are rendered invisible? And what duty do sociologists ha...
Burnout, with Hannah Proctor
19 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Burnout has become a byword for workplace exhaustion, but does it have a deeper history? Hannah Proctor joins us to explain how the notion emerged in ...
Privilege, with Shamus Khan
15 Mar 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What does privilege look like today? How do the advantaged perform “ease”? And why do some of us feel at home in elite spaces, while others feel a...
Rules, with Swethaa Ballakrishnen
19 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
What are rules for? What's at stake if we assume that they're neutral? And if we want rules to be progressive, does it matter who makes them...
Spirituality, with Andrew Singleton
15 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What exactly is spirituality? How does it relate to religion? Are both misunderstood? And what stands beyond and behind the idea that it has all simpl...
Anxiety, with Nicky Falkof
17 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Anxiety is part of contemporary life, yet rarely seen as anything other than personal and intimately psychological. Cultural Studies scholar Nicky Fal...
Success, with Jo Littler
20 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
“If you’re talented and work hard, success (whatever that is) will be yours!” – So says the powerful system and ideology known as “meritocra...
BONUS EPISODE – Public Sociology, with Gary Younge, Chantelle Lewis, Cecilia Menjívar & Michaela Benson
29 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What is public sociology and why does it matter more than ever? Gary Younge, Chantelle Lewis and Cecilia Menjívar join Michaela Benson to reflect on ...
Performance, with Kareem Khubchandani
15 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
From Shakespeare to RuPaul, we all love a performance. But what exactly is it? What are its boundaries, its powers, its potential, its stakes? Kareem ...
Nature, with Catherine Oliver
14 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
It is increasingly accepted that we cannot take nature for granted. But do we even know what nature is? Catherine Oliver brings her expertise in geogr...
Europeans, with Manuela Boatcă
16 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Does anyone know what European means? Manuela Boatcă thought she did, until a late 1990s move from Romania to Germany unsettled everything she had ta...
Solidarity, with Suresh Grover, Shabna Begum & Karis Campion
19 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
AUDIO CONTENT WARNING: description of extreme racist violenceIn 1993, Black British teenager Stephen Lawrence was murdered in a racist attack that spa...
EPISODE SWAP – Who do we think we are? presents Global Britain: Of Kings, Songs and Migrants
12 May 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What does Eurovision have to do with the Coronation? In this episode swap, the team at Who do we think we are? is talking about what we learn about “...
Breakups, with Ilana Gershon
14 Apr 2023
Contributed by Lukas
“Follow”? “Block”? “Accept”? Anthropologist Ilana Gershon joins us to reflect on breakups in both our intimate and working lives. She tell...
Taste, with Irmak Karademir Hazir
24 Mar 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What makes “good” taste? Who decides? And what’s it got to do with inequality? Sociologist Irmak Karademir Hazir grew up watching women in her p...
Listening, with Les Back
20 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
What does it mean to really listen in a society obsessed with spectacle? What’s hidden when powerful people claim to “hear” or “give voice” ...
Natives, with Nandita Sharma
23 Dec 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this supposedly “post-colonial” age, the idea of the native continues to be distorted and deployed, whether in Narendra Modi’s India or calls...
Emotion, with Billy Holzberg
18 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Emojis! Feminism! Rage! Sociologist Billy Holzberg joins us to talk about emotion. Why is it dismissed as an obstacle to progress and clear thinking –...
Cities, with Romit Chowdhury
21 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Lonely? Mean? Hostile? Cities get a bad rap. But why? Romit Chowdhury has lived in cities worldwide; from Kolkata to Rotterdam. He tells Alexis and Ro...
Bodies, with Charlotte Bates
23 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We each have a body, but every body’s story is unique. In this intimate conversation, sociologist Charlotte Bates tells Alexis and Rosie why studyin...
How can we help you?
26 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
EDUCATORS! STUDENTS! LISTENERS! We want to hear from you ...We’re taking a short summer break, and will be back in September ready and refreshed for...
Security, with Daria Krivonos
22 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Too often, talk about security seems to belong to politicians and psychologists; to discussions about terrorism and defence, individual anxiety and in...
Intimacy, with Katherine Twamley
24 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Think of intimacy and, pretty soon, you’ll probably think about sex. But, as sociologist Katherine Twamley explains, intimacy means much more than t...
School, with Remi Joseph-Salisbury
20 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
School should be about play, fulfilment and learning. But it is also a place of surveillance, discipline and discrimination. Activist scholar Remi Jos...
Home, with Michaela Benson
22 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Home means something to everyone. More than just bricks and mortar, it’s about security and belonging, citizenship and exclusion. Michaela Benson ha...
Care, with Bev Skeggs
22 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What does care really mean? For feminist sociologist Bev Skeggs, it should be at the heart of how we organise our society – from tax to health, to c...
Introducing Uncommon Sense
24 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
This is Uncommon Sense, the podcast that sees our world afresh, through the eyes of sociologists. Brought to you by The Sociological Review, it’s a ...