The Book on Fire Podcast: Recent Episodes
The Book on Fire
Life updates, book updates, parting thoughts.
Mentioned:
"On historical materialism and The Dawn of Everything" by David Wengrow
Endgame: Economic Nationalism and Global Decline by Jamie Merchant
Lifehouse: Taking Care of Ourselves in a World on Fire by Adam Greenfield
Organization, Community, Continuity by Peter Gelderloos
Mad World: The Politics of Mental Health by Micha Frazer-Carroll
The End of Eddy by Edouard Louis
Survival is a Promise: The Enternal Life of Audre Lorde by Alexis Pauline Gumbs
Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner
-- our Discord community for further discussion --
Featured music: "Stars Sewn Into Our Skies" by Big Blood and "Open the Gates" by Irreversible Entanglements. (thanks to International Anthem for permission to use the song).
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Our SECOND TO LAST episode of the season! We are joined by Nick Smaligo to talk through the major themes of The Dawn of Everything, and of Graeber's work in general. Nick was full of insights.
Nick's essay on The Dawn of Everything: "Closing Paradise's Gate"
Also mentioned: The Terms of Order by Cedric Robinson
-- our Discord community for further discussion --
Featured music: "Stars Sewn Into Our Skies" and "Thank You for the Path" by Big Blood.
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This is not our last episode on The Dawn of Everything, but here we discuss the concluding chapter of the book, which summarizes the book's project while moving forward on some of its new ideas.
Next time we will be joined by a guest to help us think about the book as a whole.
Mentioned:
Secrets, Lies, and Consequences (about Mircea Eliade) by Bruce Lincoln
-- our Discord community for further discussion --
Featured music: "Stars Sewn Into Our Skies" by Big Blood.
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We are joined by two of our good friends, who deliver a nuanced Indigenous response to The Dawn of Everything, centering on Chapter 11's treatment of Mississippian culture. They also share about an indigenous earthwork that they have recently helped to construct in the city of Bulbancha (a.k.a. New Orleans, Louisiana).
Links to further reading, courtesy of our guests:
The Great Power of Small Nations by Elizabeth Ellis
[Ellis podcast interview]
The Indigenous Paleolithic of the Western Hemisphere by Paulette F.C. Steeves
[Steeves podcast interview]
Gods of Thunder - Timothy R. Pauketat
[Pauketat podcast interviews here and here]
ArchaeoEd: A podcast about ancient civilizations of the Americas
A Sacred Path: The Way of the Muscogee Creeks
Stolen Anarchy: Playing Indian & The Roots of Collectivism | TwinRabbit
Plains Sign & the Myth of Indigenous Illiteracy | TwinRabbit
Deciphering Cherokee ritual imagery deep in the caves of the American South
nanihbvlbancha.net
IG: @nanihbvlbancha
_______
Book on Fire Discord community for further discussion -*-
Featured music: "Stars Sewn Into Our Skies" by Big Blood, Selections from "Disaster Prone" mixtape by Deejay Karo.
Cover photo by Joe Darensbourg.
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In the last full chapter of the book, the Davids return to Turtle Island to argue against the inevitability of domination and to give historical context for the indigenous critique of European society.
-- our Discord community for further discussion --
Featured music: "Stars Sewn Into Our Skies" by Big Blood.
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Hungry ancestors, play kings, and copious cosmetics. The conclusion of our discussion of Chapter 10.
Mentioned:
One River book by Wade Davis
The King Must Die book by Mary Renault
Cover image from a fresco at Knossos, on the island of Crete.
-- our Discord community for further discussion --
Featured music: "Stars Sewn Into Our Skies" and "Blind Owl I" by Big Blood.
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Regarding history, teleology and the state, and the three elementary forms of power. Our discussion of the first half of Chapter 10.
Cover image from a detail of the Raimondi Stele from Chavín de Huántar, Peru.
-- our Discord community for further discussion --
Featured music: "Stars Sewn Into Our Skies" by Big Blood. "That Glow in the Morning" by Sarah Louise.
Buy us a coffee :: Email us at thebookonfirepodcast@gmail.com
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We finish discussing Chapter 8 and move on to Chapter 9. More early cities, and a type of democracy uncovered in Spanish chronicles of Mesoamerica.
Mentioned:
Henry Corbin, French scholar of Islamic philosophy, and his book Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn 'Arabi
-- our Discord community for further discussion --
Featured music: "Stars Sewn Into Our Skies" by Big Blood. "R Mountain" by Sarah Louise.
Buy us a coffee :: Email us at thebookonfirepodcast@gmail.com
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Cities emerge around the world. What are they like? We return to discuss Chapter 8 of our book.
Mentioned:
Mountain Gardens website, instagram
Fight Like an Animal podcast
-- our Discord community for further discussion --
Featured music: "Stars Sewn Into Our Skies" by Big Blood. "Jewel of the Blue Ridge" by Sarah Louise.
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We return from halftime to talk more about early farmers and the vast middle ground that spans foraging and agriculture.
Mentioned:
"Low Level Food Production" by Bruce Smith, 2001.
-- our Discord community for further discussion --
Featured music: "Stars Sewn Into Our Skies" by Big Blood. "Offering" by Anna Luisa.
Buy us a coffee :: Email us at thebookonfirepodcast@gmail.com
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We continue our halftime break in our reading of The Dawn of Everything to review and summarize a book that is cited in Dawn, and written by a friend and colleague of the Davids. This book is Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States by James C. Scott. Among other virtues, it provides some possible answers to questions that Graeber and Wengrow persistently dodge.
-- our Discord community for further discussion --
Featured music: "Stars Sewn Into Our Skies" by Big Blood.
Buy us a coffee :: Email us at thebookonfirepodcast@gmail.com
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We go slightly off-book for this episode to explore whether we can find something to affirm in the Garden of Eden myth.
Mentioned:
Elaine Pagels, Adam, Eve, and the Serpent
Per Faxneld, Satanic Feminism
Peter Grey, Lucifer: Princeps
-- our Discord community for further discussion --
Featured music: "Stars Sewn Into Our Skies" by Big Blood. "Earth Wakes Up" by Sarah Louise. Cover image by Thomas Little @a.rural.pen
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[[ Dave & Janet's Radical Vitalism :: Blog :: Instagram ]]
A close look at the early days of cultivation and domestication.
Check out our Book on Fire EXCLUSIVE timeline of dates and places from the chapter
Mentioned on the show:
"Engels was Right: Early Human Kinship was Matrilineal" by Chris Knight
"Anatomy of a Backlash: Concerning the Work of Marija Gimbutas" by Charlene Spretnak
"The Dangerous Populist Science of Yuval Noah Harari" by Darshana Narayanan
A random mainstream anthropology site delineating "horticulture" as a subsistence strategy
-- our Discord community for further discussion --
Featured music: "Stars Sewn Into Our Skies" by Big Blood. "That Glow in the Morning" by Sarah Louise.
Buy us a coffee :: Email us at thebookonfirepodcast@gmail.com
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The
The rest of our discussion of Chapter 5. Towards the end of this episode we share thoughts about where the book has taken us so far.
- Mentioned on the show:
"Why foragers choose acorns before salmon: Storage, mobility, and risk
in aboriginal California" by Shannon Tushingham and Robert Bettinger
Jasper Bernes' essay on Revolutionary Motives
- For more on wild tending in California and in general:
Tending the Wild by M. Kat Anderson
Wild Tending series at the Ground Shots podcast
-- our Discord community for further discussion --
Featured music: "Stars Sewn Into Our Skies" by Big Blood. "Maintenance in Loving" by Anna Luisa. "Barbarism Begins at Home" by the Sm/ths.
Buy us a coffee :: Email us at thebookonfirepodcast@gmail.com
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Why are people different from their neighbors? The first half of our discussion of Chapter 5.
Since we recorded this we learned that the Northwest Coast Hall of New York's Museum of Natural History, created by Franz Boas in 1899, and which we describe on the podcast as being outdated, recently underwent a 5-year renovation in which a member of the Huupa‘chesat-h First Nation participated, and reopened in 2022. (New York Times)
Mentioned on the show:
Zora Neale Hurston's anthropological work
-- our Discord community for further discussion --
Featured music: "Stars Sewn Into Our Skies" by Big Blood. "That Glow in the Morning" by Sarah Louise.
Buy us a coffee :: Email us at thebookonfirepodcast@gmail.com
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The continuation of our conversation about Chapter 4 of The Dawn of Everything: Free People, the Origin of Cultures, and the Advent of Private Property.
Mentioned:
What is Politics? podcast (youtube)
An article by David Wengrow about Graham Hancock's Ancient Apocalypse Netflix series
The Songs of Trees by David George Haskell
Mountain Gardens
Mountain Gardens on Youtube
-- our Discord community for further discussion --
Featured music: "Stars Sewn Into Our Skies" by Big Blood. "Offering" by Anna Luisa.
Buy us a coffee :: Email us at thebookonfirepodcast@gmail.com
[[ Dave & Janet's Radical Vitalism :: Blog :: Instagram ]]
Recorded during a windstorm amidst trees falling around the house, the first half of our conversation about Chapter 4: Free People, the Origin of Cultures, and the Advent of Private Property.
Mentioned:
"The Original Affluent Society" by Marshall Sahlins
-- our Discord community for further discussion --
Featured music: "Stars Sewn Into Our Skies" and "Thank you for the Path" by Big Blood. "That Glow in the Morning" by Sarah Louise.
Buy us a coffee :: Email us at thebookonfirepodcast@gmail.com
[[ Dave & Janet's Radical Vitalism :: Blog :: Instagram ]]
In Chapter 3, Graeber & Wengrow use elaborate ice age burials and impressive building projects, along with more recent examples of cultures who changed their social structures according to the seasons, to suggest that perhaps our original political freedom is the freedom to erect and dismantle hierarchies at will.
We're experimenting with including visual timelines to help us keep track of all the history that's included in the book. See the timeline for Chapter 3. (A different presentation of the same timeline, in website form, is here.)
Mentioned in the episode:
Kolomoki Mounds
"Resetting History’s Dial? A Critique of David Graeber and David Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything" by Walter Scheidel
Seasonal Variations of the Eskimo, by Marcel Mauss and Henri Beuchat
-- our Discord community for further discussion --
Featured music: "Stars Sewn Into Our Skies" by Big Blood. "Deliberation" by Sarah Louise.
Buy us a coffee :: Email us at thebookonfirepodcast@gmail.com
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In this episode we put the book down and explore some anthropology that the Dawn of Everything is at odds with. Take it slow--it's a long one and there's a lot to cover.
Mentioned on the show:
What is Politics? podcast
Hierarchy in the Forest by Christopher Boehm
Sarah Hrdy, primatologist and anthropologist
Radical Anthropology Group
"Gender Egalitarianism Made us Human" by Camilla Power
"Did Communism Make us Human?" by Chris Knight
The Evolution of Beauty by Richard Prum
The First Domestication by Raymond Pierotti and Brandy R. Fogg
-- our Discord community for further discussion --
Featured music: "Stars Sewn Into Our Skies" by Big Blood. "Earth Wakes Up" by Sarah Louise.
Buy us a coffee :: Email us at thebookonfirepodcast@gmail.com
[[ Dave & Janet's Radical Vitalism :: Blog :: Instagram ]]
"Wicked Liberty: The Indigenous Critique and the Myth of Progress", in which we see how indigenous Americans' devastating critique of European society caused a stir when it made its way back to Europe. This one ends on a spicy note--Dave is not happy with how the chapter ends.
Mentioned: Chapter 3 of Caliban and the Witch, "Taming the Rebel Body" on how the Age of Enlightenment made way for capitalism.
NEW: We've started a Discord community in case folks are interested in more discussion around these books and ideas. Join us!
Featured music: "Stars Sewn Into Our Skies" and "Thank you for the Path" by Big Blood.
Buy us a coffee :: Email us at thebookonfirepodcast@gmail.com
[[ Dave & Janet's Radical Vitalism :: Blog :: Instagram ]]
We return! In our new season we are reading The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber & David Wengrow, a fascinating and controversial book of anthropology and social theory.
There's enough groundwork laid in Chapter 1 to make this episode a longer one than we're used to releasing. We hope you find it stimulating.
The Dawn of Everything at archive.org
NEW: We've started a Discord community in case folks are interested in more discussion around the books and ideas we engage with. Join us!
Featured music: "Stars Sewn Into Our Skies" by Big Blood. "That Glow in the Morning" by Sarah Louise.
Buy us a coffee :: Email us at thebookonfirepodcast@gmail.com
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"...those feelings of anguish and rage are the same itch the seed feels in the last days of Winter, before it bursts open and sends out its buds into the world... Remember this story, and there will be hope for Spring."
First published on Unsettling America.
Audio version originally published by Resonance.
Music by Big Blood and I Love You.
Email us at thebookonfirepodcast@gmail.com
The Book on Fire Facebook group
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Witch hunting did not end in Europe. In fact it didn't even end. The final chapter of our book.
Mentioned:
Debt: The First 5,000 Years, by David Graeber
The anthropologist Michael Taussig
"Conviction: American Panic" podcast
Janet's essay about finding and connecting with nature anywhere
Music on this episode by Big Blood and I Love You.
Email us at thebookonfirepodcast@gmail.com
The Book on Fire Facebook group
[[ Dave & Janet's Radical Vitalism :: Blog :: Instagram :: Website ]]
Why were women especially targeted by the Witch Hunt? The continuation of Chapter 4.
Mentioned:
The Witch Cult in Western Europe by Margaret Murray
The Triumph of the Moon by Ronald Hutton
Witches, Midwives, and Nurses: A History of Women Healers by Ehrenreich and English
Stephany Hoffelt's Domestic Medicine blog
Diane Purkiss
Music on this episode by Big Blood and I Love You.
Email us at thebookonfirepodcast@gmail.com
The Book on Fire Facebook group
[[ Dave & Janet's Radical Vitalism :: Blog :: Instagram :: Website ]]
Arguably the most important chapter of the book. "The Great Witch-Hunt in Europe"
Mentioned:
Malleus Maleficarum or The Hammer of the Witches
Music on this episode by Big Blood and I Love You.
Email us at thebookonfirepodcast@gmail.com
The Book on Fire Facebook group
[[ Dave & Janet's Radical Vitalism :: Blog :: Instagram :: Website ]]
Capitalism needed to invent a new kind of person, a new subject to fit into its scheme. Science and rationalist philosophy was happy to provide.
Mentioned on the podcast:
Harriet Washington Medical Apartheid
Richard Dawkins The Selfish Gene
Jared Diamond Guns, Germs, and Steel
Excellent critique of Diamond's book from the Savage Minds blog
Music on this episode by Big Blood and I Love You.
Email us at thebookonfirepodcast@gmail.com
The Book on Fire Facebook group
[[ Dave & Janet's Radical Vitalism :: Blog :: Instagram :: Website ]]
We return to finish chapter 2.
Mentioned on the show:
The podcast series "Seeing White" from Scene on Radio
Dr. Kim Tallbear on For the Wild podcast
Music on this episode by Big Blood and I Love You.
Email us at thebookonfirepodcast@gmail.com
The Book on Fire Facebook group
[[ Dave & Janet's Radical Vitalism :: Blog :: Instagram :: Website ]]
We begin discussing the pivotal second chapter. There was too much to fit into one episode, so this conversation will be continued.
Mentioned:
Q, the novel, by Luther Blissett
The World Turned Upside Down, by Christopher Hill
Music on this episode by Big Blood and I Love You.
Email us at thebookonfirepodcast@gmail.com
[[ Dave & Janet's Radical Vitalism :: Blog :: Instagram :: Website ]]
Life during feudalism, popular revolt, heretical resistance: "All the World Needs Jolt: Social Movements and Political Crisis in Medieval Europe".
Further reading:
Tragedy of the Commons on Wikipedia
"First as Tragedy, then as Fascism", article from The Baffler about the legacy of Garrett Hardin, who popularized the "tragedy" in a 1968 essay.
The Revolution of Everyday Life by Raoul Vaneigem (PDF)
Music on this episode by Big Blood and I Love You.
Email us at thebookonfirepodcast@gmail.com
[[ Dave & Janet's Radical Vitalism :: Blog :: Instagram :: Website ]]
Caliban and the Witch is much more than a book of history. Today we introduce our new book, get oriented to the subject matter, define some terms, and cover highlights from the preface and the introduction.
Order the book from AK Press here.
It can also be found free online as a scanned PDF here
And possibly as an EPUB ebook here.
Also mentioned:
Witchcraft and the Gay Counterculture by Arthur Evans
Music on this episode by Big Blood and I Love You.
Email us at thebookonfirepodcast@gmail.com
[[ Dave & Janet's Radical Vitalism :: Blog :: Instagram :: Website ]]
To begin Season 2 we are following threads from last season's discussions of Donna Haraway's Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene before starting our next full book. Next time we will also have new music, so enjoy Reanimator one last time.
We discuss articles by two authors, all of which can be found online.
First up is a piece by Australian artist Tega Brain, called "The Environment is Not a System"
Then we move on to three articles by Stephanie Wakefield on living in the Anthropocene's "Back Loop" find them at these links:
https://brooklynrail.org/2017/06/field-notes/Field-Notes-from-the-Anthropocene-Living-in-the-Back-Loop
https://www.affidavit.art/articles/dreaming-the-back-loop
https://www.academia.edu/37771372/Inhabiting_the_Anthropocene_back_loop
Diagram of the adaptive cycle:
Also mentioned on the podcast:
Dave's article: Sun Medicine / Moon Medicine
Next time we will begin discussing Silvia Federici's Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body, and Primitive Accumulation, a historical work about the previous worldwide transition that the planet experienced at the birth of capitalism in the era of European colonization.
Order it from AK Press here.
It can also be found free online as a scanned PDF here
And possibly as an EPUB ebook here?
See you next time!
Email us at thebookonfirepodcast@gmail.com
[[ Dave & Janet's Radical Vitalism :: Blog :: Instagram :: Website ]]
In the final episode of our first season we revisit highlights from the book, and ask ourselves how we would integrate the lessons and insights into our ongoing work. How could the ideas in book be extended? What does Haraway leave out that we can provide?
This is a thoughtful episode, processing and integrating many big ideas that we've been waiting until now to fully unpack.
Thanks to all who have stayed with us for the whole ride. We intend to continue this book club experiment with short readings throughout the summer, and begin a full new book in earnest in the fall. Stay tuned.
As a bonus, we managed to locate the full documentary "Donna Haraway: Storytelling for Earthly Survival" online. Follow the link to take it in.
[[ Dave & Janet's Radical Vitalism :: Blog :: Instagram :: Website ]]
With some delay, this is our discussion of the last chapter of Staying with the Trouble, a speculative fiction called "The Camille Stories: Children of Compost". Stay tuned for our for our final thoughts about Haraway's book before we move on to new material.
Mentioned in this episode:
The trailer for Donna Haraway: Storytelling for Earthly Survival
Inhabit: Instructions for Autonomy
[[ Dave & Janet's Radical Vitalism :: Blog :: Instagram :: Website ]]
Apologies! this episode was accidentally deleted and is now being re-posted.
Mentioned in this episode:
More about Dave & Janet
Ursula Le Guin's Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction essay (PDF)
Everything Matters: Why This is No Time for Cynicism by Janet
The Evolution of Beauty (book) by Richard O. Prum
A recent Radiolab episode about The Evolution of Beauty
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Two chapters this week: "Making Kin" and "Awash in Urine." Haraway proposes that voluntary non-reproduction may be a solution to ecological crisis. Is she right?
Mentioned in this episode:
Kim TallBear's lecture "Making Love and Relations Beyond Settler Sexualities"
Permaculture and the Myth of Overpopulation
and as always..
The Book on Fire Facebook group
Email us at thebookonfirepodcast@gmail.com
[[ Dave & Janet's Radical Vitalism :: Blog :: Instagram :: Website ]]
Could our intestinal microbiome be luminescent? In this episode we discuss "Sympoiesis: Symbiogenesis and the Lively Arts of Staying with the Trouble", chapter 3 of our book.
Link to Our new Facebook discussion group
Featured in the show:
The Hawaiian Bobtail Squid
The Bee Orchid comic from xkcd.com
Website for the Crochet Coral Reef
(note: Dave's excited explanation of the hyperbolic mathematics involved in the crochet reef didn't make the final cut for this episode. But the math is fascinating. Check it out.)
The Indigenous Critique of the Green New Deal
Navajo Churro ram
Email us at thebookonfirepodcast@gmail.com
[[ Dave & Janet's Radical Vitalism :: Blog :: Instagram :: Website ]]
Discussion of Chapter 2 of Staying with the Trouble, "Tentacular Thinking: Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Chthulucene"
Music by our friends Reanimator, from their album "Special Powers"
Email us at thebookonfirepodcast@gmail.com
[[ Dave & Janet's Radical Vitalism :: Blog :: Instagram :: Website ]]
We discuss the Introduction and First Chapter of Donna Haraway's "Staying with the Trouble". Music from our good friends Reanimator, from their 2000 album Special Powers.
Mentioned in the episode:
Navajo grandma shows her string figures
The Songlines, by Bruce Chatwin
Email us at thebookonfirepodcast@gmail.com
[[ Dave & Janet's Radical Vitalism :: Blog :: Instagram :: Website ]]
In this episode Janet & Dave introduce themselves, the podcast, and introduce the first book we'll be reading-- Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene by Donna J. Haraway.
(Music by Reanimator)
Email us at thebookonfirepodcast@gmail.com
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