PODOPTICON is a politics, history, and philosophy podcast. Topics will range. Subscribe wherever you get podcasts.
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.
Christopher Hallenbrook and I discuss what he calls the "Hobbesian psychology" of the US gun debate.
A conversation about Montaigne and his work with Douglass I. Thompson, author of "Montaigne and the Tolerance of Politics."
Joshua Cherniss and I discuss his book, "Liberalism in Dark Times: The Liberal Ethos in the Twentieth Century."
David Lay Williams and I discuss his forthcoming book, "The Greatest of All Plagues: Economic Inequality in Western Political Thought."
A discussion with Elizabeth Cohen about her book, "The Political Value of Time: Citizenship, Duration, and Democratic Justice."
Ian Saxine and I discuss his book, "Properties of Empire: Indians, Colonists, and Land Speculators on the New England Frontier."
Robinson Woodward-Burns and I discuss his book, "Hidden Laws: How State Constitutions Stabilize American Politics."
A conversation with Harvey Mansfield on Machiavelli as the "founder of modernity."
A conversation with Nomi Claire Lazar about her book, "Out of Joint: Power, Crisis, and the Rhetoric of Time."
A discussion with Ross Carroll, author of "Uncivil Mirth: Ridicule in Enlightenment Britain."
A discussion with Joshua Greenberg, author of "Banknotes and Shinplasters: The Rage for Paper Money in the Early Republic."
A chat with Stephen F. Knott, author of "The Lost Soul of the American Presidency: The Decline into Demagoguery and the Prospects for Renewal."
Warner and I conclude our long discussion of "Persian Letters."
Warner and I dig into Letter 141.
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.
A discussion with Ross Benes, author of "Rural Rebellion: How Nebraska Became a Republican Stronghold."
A conversation with Max Skjönsberg, author of "The Persistence of Party: Ideas of Harmonious Discord in Eighteenth-Century Britain."
A conversation with Zena Hitz, author of "Lost in Thought: the Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life."
A conversation with Samuel Goldman, author of "After Nationalism: Being American in an Age of Division."
A 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, a...
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 to recenter the latter around Black political thought, and how this book fits within the Socratic tradition.
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, 1761-1775."
Dimitris Vardoulakis and I discuss his book, Spinoza, the Epicurean: Authority and Utility in Materialism.
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 his audience directly. “YOU” must this and that. “YOU.” A jarring sort of second person personal. Now, in the spirit of autobiograph...
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 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 ...
It 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...
Politics 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 ...
