More Intercultural Learning

Books, podcasts, films

The Language and Intercultural Learning Center collects and shares suggestions for exploring intercultural and language-focused topics on your own through books, films, podcasts, and more. For individuals working through their IDI Plan, browse these resources and consider something exploring a new or uncomfortable subject as you create your personal path toward intercultural growth.

The following list of suggested resources will continue to grow this coming year, and we invite you to share your suggestions. Use the form below to suggest a book, podcast episode, film or other resource that may support individuals seeking to further their intercultural competence.

Books

• Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson
  
• The Trauma of Caste: A Dalit Feminist Meditation on Survivorship, Healing, and Abolition by Thenmozhi Soundararajan
  
• True Biz by Sara Novic
  
• She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders by Jennifer Finney Boylan

Podcast Episodes

• CODE SWITCH: Who does language belong to? A fight over the Lakota Language
  “Many Lakota people agree: It’s imperative to revitalize the Lakota language. But how exactly to do that is a matter of broader debate…”

• CODE SWITCH: The beauty and entitlement of traveling as a tourist
  In her book Airplane Mode, Shahnaz Habib discusses “‘passport privilege,’ — and how that can skew peoples’ images of what the world is and who it belongs to.”

• SUBTITLE: Why the French use the English word ‘black’
  “The French language is replete with words borrowed from English, like ‘weekend’ and ‘podcasting.’ But French speakers’ use of ‘black’ is in a category of its own…”

• CODE SWITCH: Exclusion, resilience and the Chinese American experience on ‘Mott Street‘
  “Through decades of painstaking research, a fifth-generation New Yorker discovered the stories of how her ancestors bore and resisted the weight of the Chinese Exclusion laws in the U.S. – and how the legacy of that history still affects her family today….”

• THROUGHLINE: The Whiteness Myth
  “In 1923, an Indian American man named Bhagat Singh Thind told the U.S. Supreme Court that he was white, and therefore eligible to become a naturalized citizen…”

• THE DAILY: Whales Have an Alphabet
  “Ever since the discovery of whale songs almost 60 years ago, scientists have been trying to decipher the lyrics… Carl Zimmer, a science reporter, explains the possibility why it’s possible that the whales are communicating in a complex language…”

• CODE SWITCH: The history of trans misogyny is the history of segregation
  “As anti-trans legislation has ramped up, historian Jules Gill-Peterson turns the lens to the past in her book, ‘A Short History of Trans Misogyny.’ …we talk about how panics around trans femininity are shaped by wider forces of colonialism, segregation and class interests…”

Films

• Origin (2023), based on Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents
  
• Arrival (2016), a fascinating mashup of linguistics and science fiction
  
• CODA (2021), winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture, adapted from the 2014 French-Belgian film La Famille Bélier (2014)