Welcome to the next in the Podcast Showcase series, where we share podcasts with you in the words of the podcasters themselves. This time, we talk to In The Great Khan’s Tent.
Sum up your podcast in three sentences
We examine the literature and folk literature, alongside it’s history, from the Middle East, Central Asia, South Asia, North Africa, Mongolia, and the Russian Far East.
We present these corpus of literature/folk literature to the listener in a new format that removes the orientalist trappings of the original translators. This often means reintroducing the removed religious wording of the text that the translators took out to make it more secular.
Who is your ideal listener? Who loves your show?
Our ideal listener and the person who would love to hear my show would be someone who is interested in literature and folk literature and is interest in a non-western perspective and texts.
While fairy and folk tales are often presented in either a European or colonial context, the ideal listener would be someone who wants a different perspective on the common tales they might have read. As we are a single narrative host, it would also be someone who is comfortable in listening to a single narrator tell the story.
What made you start this podcast?
I started this podcast because I could not find what I was looking for.
Most podcasts, as everyone knows, is either a couple of white guys sitting around a talk chatting or some other form of podcast in the white male sphere.
I could not find someone who would talk and tell tales and stories outside of the colonial or neo-colonial context, so I decided that starting my podcast, based on what I wanted to hear, would be the best.
What have you learned about your subject thanks to this podcast?
As a historian and a librarian, I admittedly have not gained additional knowledge as I was already within this field. However, what I can admit to learning is the inside, nitty gritty detail about each of the translators that I use and their different perspectives on how to translate a text such as the One Thousand and One Nights.
It led me to deep dive into examining the stories and which ones were excluded and included and why was it so.
This then lead me down a path to compare and contrast each translation and why I should or should not use them.
What has your experience of podcasting been? What do you love / hate about the process?
The process of producing a podcast is an interesting experience. I have never been within the podcast industry before and, as someone who is learning from scratch and is essentially a one-man band for every different aspect, it has been a wild ride.
I love recording and editing the podcast so that the listeners have a great time experiencing the tales and stories I narrate.
I, however, have a difficult time in trying to attract attention to the podcast through social media presence and it is a steep learning curve for me.
If someone wants to start listening to your podcast, which episode would you recommend they start with? Why?
If they wanted to begin with the One Thousand and One Nights, also called the Arabian Nights, I would recommend they begin with Episode 1 as that is the start of the entire tale.
Which other podcasts do you love listening to?
I love listening to BBC’s In Our Time, as the topics are always informative and interesting. I also love listening to CBC News Podcasts, in particular, At Issue since they cover up to date Canadian politics and stories. I listen to Steak and Eggs as well since I do like the banter between the hosts.
If people want to find you online, where can they do so?
We are on almost every social media platform and if you search for “In The Great Khan’s Tent” you can find us.
On X (Twitter) our handle is @ITGreatKhanTent, on Threads it is @inthegreatkhanstent, and our email is inthegreatkhanstent@gmail.com. We also have a Patreon, a Ko-Fi, and a Buy Me a Coffee.
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