podopticon: Recent Episodes
podopticon
Last time, we discussed Rousseau’s “Confessions,” an autobiographical work that’s meant to encourage some thinking around various questions common to life and living. This time, we turn to another thinker who made his own life central in various ways, James Baldwin. As we’ll see, Baldwin personalized his thinking–not just by being autobiographical but by addressing...
Dimitris Vardoulakis and I discuss his book, “Spinoza, the Epicurean: Authority and Utility in Materialism.”
A discussion of the new book, “African American Political Thought: A Collected History.” I’m joined by Melvin Rogers and Jack Turner, the editors of this magnificent volume. The conversation is wide ranging. We discuss the obstacles to the emergence of this field, the neglect of African American thinkers in American Political Thought, what it means...
A conversation with Nomi Claire Lazar about her book, “Out of Joint: Power, Crisis, and the Rhetoric of Time.”
A conversation with Max Skjönsberg, author of “The Persistence of Party: Ideas of Harmonious Discord in Eighteenth-Century Britain.”
A discussion with Joshua Greenberg, author of “Banknotes and Shinplasters: The Rage for Paper Money in the Early Republic.”
Robinson Woodward-Burns and I discuss his book, “Hidden Laws: How State Constitutions Stabilize American Politics.”
Ian Saxine and I discuss his book, “Properties of Empire: Indians, Colonists, and Land Speculators on the New England Frontier.”
In December of 1770, Jean-Jacques Rousseau completed his Confessions and gave his first reading of the book to a group of seven or so gathered at a Parisian home for the occasion. Rousseau started at nine in the morning and for the next 14 to 18 hours, he let it all hang out. Those who first heard...
Warner and I continue to dig in. Good stuff in this one, including a prison break using a file that was hidden in a cuckoo clock.
Stuart Warner, who’s responsible for an excellent translation of the “Persian Letters,” and I discuss Montesquieu’s style.
Good books will make you think of things they don’t raise explicitly, and what Ariel Ron’s book does for me is it makes me think about the stories we tell ourselves–and what work those stories do. His book, Grassroots Leviathan: Agricultural Reform and the Rural North in the Slaveholding Republic uncovers what turns out to be...
A discussion with Ross Carroll, author of “Uncivil Mirth: Ridicule in Enlightenment Britain.”
This episode is about the state of nature, which turns out to be a lot of things, as will any concept that’s about 6,000 years old. But following my guest, Mark Somos, we’ve narrowed it down to about fifteen years in 18th century America. We discuss Somos’s “American States of Nature: The Origins of Independence,...
A discussion with Elizabeth Cohen about her book, “The Political Value of Time: Citizenship, Duration, and Democratic Justice.”