Shows
2025-03-1605 minPodopticonLosing Left and Right? A Conversation with Hyrum Lewis and Verlan Lewis.In this episode, I discuss "The Myth of Left and Right: How the Political Spectrum Misleads and Harms America" with its authors, Hyrum Lewis and Verlan Lewis.
2023-04-3057 minPodopticonSome Hobbes for Your Firearms DebateChristopher Hallenbrook and I discuss what he calls the "Hobbesian psychology" of the US gun debate.
2023-03-2332 minPodopticonMontaigne and His "Essays"A conversation about Montaigne and his work with Douglass I. Thompson, author of "Montaigne and the Tolerance of Politics."
2022-11-211h 14PodopticonFight Like Hell: A Defense of the Liberal EthosJoshua Cherniss and I discuss his book, "Liberalism in Dark Times: The Liberal Ethos in the Twentieth Century."
2022-11-061h 10Podopticon'The Greatest of All Plagues': David Lay Williams on Economic Inequality in Western Political ThoughtDavid Lay Williams and I discuss his forthcoming book, "The Greatest of All Plagues: Economic Inequality in Western Political Thought."
2022-09-1152 minPodopticonWait for It: A Conversation about Time and Politics with Elizabeth F. CohenA discussion with Elizabeth Cohen about her book, "The Political Value of Time: Citizenship, Duration, and Democratic Justice."
2022-06-2342 minPodopticon"Clever Usurpation" or "Sacred Right"?: Rousseau on Property and Wealth, with Christopher Kelly
2022-03-071h 28PodopticonClashing Conceptions of Property on the New England FrontierIan Saxine and I discuss his book, "Properties of Empire: Indians, Colonists, and Land Speculators on the New England Frontier."
2022-02-071h 16PodopticonStates of the Union: Robinson Woodward-Burns on American Constitutional DevelopmentRobinson Woodward-Burns and I discuss his book, "Hidden Laws: How State Constitutions Stabilize American Politics."
2022-01-1537 minPodopticonVirtù Signaling: Harvey Mansfield on MachiavelliA conversation with Harvey Mansfield on Machiavelli as the "founder of modernity."
2021-12-271h 00PodopticonIt's about Time: A Conversation with Nomi Claire LazarA conversation with Nomi Claire Lazar about her book, "Out of Joint: Power, Crisis, and the Rhetoric of Time."
2021-12-0339 minPodopticonDon't Be Ridiculous: Discussing "Uncivil Mirth" with Ross CarrollA discussion with Ross Carroll, author of "Uncivil Mirth: Ridicule in Enlightenment Britain."
2021-10-291h 19PodopticonAll the Rage: Paper Money in the Early RepublicA discussion with Joshua Greenberg, author of "Banknotes and Shinplasters: The Rage for Paper Money in the Early Republic."
2021-10-121h 01PodopticonAbove the Fray?: On the Decline into Demagoguery and Hopes for Renewal in the American PresidencyA chat with Stephen F. Knott, author of "The Lost Soul of the American Presidency: The Decline into Demagoguery and the Prospects for Renewal."
2021-09-1931 minPodopticon"Persian Letters," Part 4: the View From the 'Darkened West'Warner and I conclude our long discussion of "Persian Letters."
2021-09-0451 min2021-08-301h 08Podopticon"Persian Letters," Part 2: In the "Master's Workshop"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.
2021-08-241h 40Podopticon"Persian Letters," Part 1: Montesquieu's Literary ArtStuart Warner, who's responsible for an excellent translation of the "Persian Letters," and I discuss Montesquieu's style.
2021-08-231h 17PodopticonHow Can Anyone Be Nebraskan?A discussion with Ross Benes, author of "Rural Rebellion: How Nebraska Became a Republican Stronghold."
2021-07-2737 minPodopticonParty Like It's 1714-97A conversation with Max Skjönsberg, author of "The Persistence of Party: Ideas of Harmonious Discord in Eighteenth-Century Britain."
2021-07-1152 minPodopticonGetting Lost in ThoughtA conversation with Zena Hitz, author of "Lost in Thought: the Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life."
2021-06-1845 minPodopticonNationalism, American StyleA conversation with Samuel Goldman, author of "After Nationalism: Being American in an Age of Division."
2021-05-291h 03PodopticonThe Suburbs and the Politics of SafetyA discussion with Kyle Riismandel about his book, "Neighborhood of Fear: The Suburban Crisis in American Culture, 1975-2001." The book is a tight monograph of cultural history and critique, and it should have broad appeal across disciplines and outside of academia. Our conversation is wide-ranging: on the possibilities of punk rock history, "productive victimization," the mall, the use and abuse of fear in the suburbs, the distinction between urban and suburban spaces in matters like policing, and more!Riismandel has compiled playlists relevant to the book on YouTube and Spotify, linked here and here. Good stuff.
2021-05-1539 minPodopticonAfrican American Political Thought: A ProvocationA 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 to recenter the latter around Black political thought, and how this book fits within the Socratic tradition.
2021-04-3028 minPodopticonThe “State of Nature” and the Origins of American IndependenceThis 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, 1761-1775."
2021-04-1738 minPodopticonSpinoza's Epicurean Politics: the Dialectic of Authority and Utility and the Pleasures of Sober ReasoningDimitris Vardoulakis and I discuss his book, Spinoza, the Epicurean: Authority and Utility in Materialism.
2021-04-0252 minPodopticonJames Baldwin's Tough LoveLast 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 his audience directly. “YOU” must this and that. “YOU.” A jarring sort of second person personal.Now, in the spirit of autobiography, even a touch of confession, I don’t know James Baldwin well at all. I come to him...
2021-03-2340 minPodopticonOn Rousseau's "Confessions": A Life in the Camera ObscuraIn 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 the Confessions read were equally stunned but variously effected, you could say. From “how beautiful and profound that an individual could be so nobly forthright” to “what’s wrong with this whimpering psycho?” Those are paraphrases. But why would someone, especially someone so...
2021-03-0442 minPodopticonMichael Hattem on the Long Tradition of Fashioning an American PastIt turns out that working and reworking American identity is as old as the creation of the republic itself. As we’ll see in this episode, the thing called “American History” is not a static set of truths to be uncovered, but a story that has had numerous versions told by individuals with their own motivations.This and much more is uncovered in this discussion with Michael Hattem, author of "Past and Prologue: Politics and Memory in the American Revolution."In this episode, we’ll discuss, among other things, how the American Revolution stands out from the...
2021-02-1346 minPodopticonWhat is Politics for? Lessons from the GrayzonePolitics relates to imagery in ways that I was able to understand anew, thanks to this conversation with Aaron Tugendhaft. He’s the author of the "Idols of ISIS: from Assyria to the Internet." We quickly enough see how the book is not so much a book about ISIS as it is an allegory for political and apolitical tendencies closer to home. Tugendhaft manages to blend his background in art history, ancient and Near East studies, and political theory in a remarkably readable and enlightening way. The book should have broad appeal.Get it here.
2021-02-0243 minPodopticonPolitics, High and Low: Impeachment, the Pardon Power, and More with Jeffrey Tulis and Connor EwingWe recorded this episode on Jan 12, just six days since a mob, whipped up by the president, breached the capitol. The first such breach since the war of 1812. So we’ve had to restart the clock, so to speak.It’s the insurrection equivalent of a workplace injuries counter: “6 days without a breach!”So we recorded six days after a mob stormed the capitol and one day before the House voted to impeach for a second time. Nancy Pelosi wore the same dress for both impeachments, which is just cool, if you ask me. A sartorial...
2021-01-1549 minPodopticonConstitutionalism After Trump: a Conversation with George Thomas and Ben KleinermanIn this episode, we discuss two things: constitutionalism and the Republican Party, which are these days opposing forces. My guests, George Thomas and Ben Kleinerman, are trying to recapture a kind of constitutionalism that goes back to the American founding thought in some ways. They don’t make that turn worshipfully, so they can be engaged reasonably.
2020-12-1928 minPodopticonStorytelling for a Crisis: Reading Herodotus with Joel Alden SchlosserI like the classical authors. They’re fun. So many of them speak in earthy remarks, like, you can’t know you’re happy until you’re dead. Stuff like that. Whatever’s the opposite of a cheerful nonsense slogan. But another reason to turn to the classics, even especially one Herodotus, is right here in this episode, which turns out to be timely–in so far as the humanities seem always now to be in a crisis.Joel Alden Schlosser is my guest, and the crisis he addresses in his book, Herodotus in the Anthropocene...
2020-12-0436 minPodopticonOn the Farm with Ariel Ron: the Social Movement that Built a Grassroots LeviathanGood 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 social movement of northern farmers who put their stamp on American democracy and American self-image in lasting ways.The book runs from the lead up of the American Revolution through the Civil War, which I think mo...
2020-11-2130 minPodopticonOn the History of Freedom–with Annelien de DijnIn this episode, I talk to Annelien de Dijn about her new book Freedom: an Unruly History. The book is a fascinating read, and the pod is a great conversation. This one will be especially interesting to those interested in politics and political thought, as de Dijn dwells on the anti-democratic character of liberal conceptions of freedom and the government best set to attain it.
2020-10-3128 minPodopticonThe Idea of Presidential Representation–with Jeremy Bailey and Benjamin KleinermanSo an ordinary guy stumbles into a conversation with two presidency scholars…. That’s essentially what happens in this episode. Jeremy Bailey, Benjamin Kleinerman, and I got together without a plan, just to discuss the argument advanced in Bailey’s book, “The Idea of Presidential Representation: An Intellectual and Political History.” Good stuff comes of it, I think. And much territory is covered.
2020-10-2331 min
Moving Picture MadnessTen Of Our Favourite Horror MoviesThis week, we are discussing TEN of our favourite horror movies - we've chosen five each and these represent the horror flicks that may not be the BEST movies per se, but ones that we dig hard. YOU also sent in audio clips with your favourites too plus we chat about what else we've been checking out over the past week // ** Some of the audio is janky throughout the episode unfortunately but it remains ridiculously listenable ** // Thanks to Ant Goodman, Bloggy Balboa, Brandon Hunt, Paul and Griff, Ian Forrest, Jon Berk, Kevin Crighton, Chris Pattinson, Raye, Up Close...
2020-10-191h 56PodopticonNever Trump–Weak Revolt or Masterful Capture? Author Rob Saldin DiscussesNever Trumpers. Who are they? Who cares? Masters of the political universe? Conservative elites who had power till a minute ago and now have little to offer beyond what talking heads can do? Great chat with one of the guys who wrote the book on the matter, Rob Saldin, co-author of "Never Trump: the Revolt of the Conservative Elites."
2020-10-1827 minPodopticonOn the Bright Side–the Invention of Color with Carolyn PurnellThis one's fun. Let it be a break from the noise. A leaf peeping drive around the history of color with historian, and my pal, Carolyn Purnell. That she’s my pal explains the joy in my voice–joy where there’s more often doom.
2020-10-0825 min