Podcast How to Say No November 01, 2022 The Cynics were ancient Greek philosophers who stood athwart the flood of society鈥檚 material excess, unexamined conventions, and even norms of politeness and thundered 鈥淣o!鈥� Diogenes, the most famous Cynic, wasn鈥檛 shy about literally extending his middle finger to the world, expressing mock surprise that 鈥渕ost people go crazy over a finger.鈥� Read More
Podcast Spiderweb Capitalism October 25, 2022 In 2015, the anonymous leak of the Panama Papers brought to light millions of financial and legal documents exposing how the superrich hide their money using complex webs of offshore vehicles.聽 Read More
Podcast Sonorous Desert August 17, 2022 For the hermits and communal monks of antiquity, the desert was a place to flee the cacophony of ordinary life in order to hear and contemplate the voice of God. But these monks discovered something surprising in their harsh desert surroundings: far from empty and silent, the desert is richly reverberant. Read More
Podcast The Secret Body August 04, 2022 Imagine knowing years in advance whether you are likely to get cancer or having a personalized understanding of your individual genes, organs, and cells. Imagine being able to monitor your body鈥檚 well-being, or have a diet tailored to your microbiome.聽 Read More
Podcast Flying Snakes and Griffin Claws July 26, 2022 Adrienne Mayor is renowned for exploring the borders of history, science, archaeology, anthropology, and popular knowledge to find historical realities and scientific insights鈥攇limmering, long-buried nuggets of truth鈥攅mbedded in myth, legends, and folklore. Read More
Podcast Until We Have Won Our Liberty July 06, 2022 In this podcast, Evan Lieberman discusses his new book, Until We Have Won Our Liberty, a compelling account of South Africa鈥檚 post-Apartheid democracy. Read More
Podcast When Animals Dream June 20, 2022 Are humans the only dreamers on Earth? What goes on in the minds of animals when they sleep?聽When Animals Dream聽brings together behavioral and neuroscientific research on animal sleep with philosophical theories of dreaming. Read More
Podcast The Wordhord: Daily Life in Old English May 24, 2022 Old English is the language you think you know until you actually hear or see it. Unlike Shakespearean English or even Chaucer鈥檚 Middle English, Old English鈥攖he language of聽Beowulf鈥攄efies comprehension by untrained modern readers. Read More
Podcast Ravenna: Capital of Empire, Crucible of Europe May 09, 2022 At the end of the fourth century, as the power of Rome faded and Constantinople became the seat of empire, a new capital city was rising in the West. Here, in Ravenna on the coast of Italy, Arian Goths and Catholic Romans competed to produce an unrivaled concentration of buildings and astonishing mosaics. Read More
Podcast A Vertical Art: On Poetry April 26, 2022 In聽A Vertical Art, acclaimed poet Simon Armitage takes a refreshingly common-sense approach to an art form that can easily lend itself to grand statements and hollow gestures. Read More
Podcast Does Skill Make Us Human? March 30, 2022 Skill鈥攕pecifically the distinction between the 鈥渟killed鈥� and 鈥渦nskilled鈥濃�攊s generally defined as a measure of ability and training, but聽Does Skill Make Us Human?聽shows instead that skill distinctions are used to limit freedom, narrow political rights, and even deny access to imagination and desire. Read More
Podcast So Simple a Beginning March 11, 2022 The form and function of a sprinting cheetah are quite unlike those of a rooted tree. A human being is very different from a bacterium or a zebra. Read More
Podcast American Shtetl February 17, 2022 Settled in the mid-1970s by a small contingent of Hasidic families, Kiryas Joel is an American town with few parallels in Jewish history鈥攂ut many precedents among religious communities in the United States. Read More
Podcast Getting Something to Eat in Jackson February 06, 2022 Getting Something to Eat in Jackson uses food鈥攚hat people eat and how鈥攖o explore the interaction of race and class in the lives of African Americans in the contemporary urban South. Read More
Podcast Grief: A Philosophical Guide January 28, 2022 Experiencing grief at the death of a person we love or who matters to us鈥攁s universal as it is painful鈥攊s central to the human condition. Surprisingly, however, philosophers have rarely examined grief in any depth. Read More
