Recall This Book x The Caste Pod: a Crossover episode with Ajantha Subramanian

Recall This Book x The Caste Pod: a Crossover episode with Ajantha Subramanian

July 16, 2026 · 1h 0m

About this episode

Ajantha Subramanian joins John to discuss the intersection of caste, race, and class in the context of economic inequality and cultural discrimination.

In the spirit of Hannah Arendt's natality principle (that new things are always and should always be being born, each one unique and endowed with limitless potential) we at RTB love it when a new podcast appears. Especially one as thoughtful and original as The Caste Pod, which assembles scholars and activists to make sense of what caste is, how it's experienced and how it has travelled globally. Join us to discuss and share an extended excerpt is its widely published (check out her earlier books!) founder Ajantha Subramanian, Professor of Anthropology at CUNY Graduate Center, and producer (with Lori Allen) of the “Violent Majorities” series here at RTB. John and Ajantha delve into the founding of the podcast, and then enter into the business end of the series, which is to explore the complex interplay between caste, race and class as organizing features of economic inequality and its corresponding features of cultural discrimination and oppression. Ajantha's extended conversation with Prachi and Ram of Savera, a multiracial, interfaith, anti-caste coalition of Indian Americans from The Caste Pod episode 10 lays bare its premise: to put scholars…

People in this episode

Host: John

Guest: Ajantha Subramanian

Topics covered

Keywords

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: CUNY Graduate Center, The Caste Pod, Savera, Cisco

Books & works: Caste

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