logo
episode-header-image
Aug 2023
55m 13s

History of Ideas: Simone Weil

David Runciman
About this episode
This week’s episode in our series on the great essays and great essayists is about Simone Weil’s ‘Human Personality’ (1943). Written shortly before her death aged just 34, it is an uncompromising repudiation of the building blocks of modern life: democracy, rights, personal identity, scientific progress – all these are rejected. What does Weil have to put in ... Show More
Up next
Mar 1
Where Are We Going? Societal Collapse – The Modern Age
In today’s episode David talks to Luke Kemp, author of Goliath’s Curse, about the strengths and weaknesses of modern states and modern structures of authority. Are modern states any different from the criminal enterprises of coercion that preceded them? Does democracy change the ... Show More
1h 10m
Feb 25
Where Are We Going? Societal Collapse – Origins
Today’s episode is the first in a series of conversations about what causes human societies to fall apart and what might come next. David talks to Luke Kemp, author of Goliath’s Curse, about how we build our structures of authority and how they can fail. How were human societies ... Show More
1h 6m
Feb 22
Where Are We Going? Nuclear War Part 3
Today’s episode is the third and final of David’s conversations with S. M. Amadae about nuclear weapons and nuclear war, this time looking to the future. What are the prospects for nuclear disarmament in the 21st century? How does the risk of nuclear war intersect with other exis ... Show More
55m 29s
Recommended Episodes
Nov 2012
Simone Weil
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the French philosopher and social activist Simone Weil. Born in Paris in 1909 into a wealthy, agnostic Jewish family, Weil was a precocious child and attended the prestigious Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, achieving the top marks in her cla ... Show More
42m 6s
Feb 2023
Marie Stopes: Birth Control & Eugenics
<p>Why would someone disown their son over a pair of glasses? How could an unmarried woman in 1918 have published a book about sexual pleasure? And what is an appropriate gift for a newlywed prince and princess?&nbsp;</p><br><p>Today, we’re looking at the complicated woman who wa ... Show More
35m 45s
Aug 2022
Three Sentences That Could Change the World — and Your Life
<p>Today’s show is built around <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/05/opinion/the-case-for-longtermism.html" target="_blank">three simple sentences</a>: “Future people count. There could be a lot of them. And we can make their lives better.” Those sentences form the foundat ... Show More
1h 8m
Mar 2022
#88 - Littérature et colonialisme : écrire les vies enfouies
<p><strong>Si la littérature s’avère parfois exotisante ou violente lorsqu’elle aborde les vies colonisées, elle permet aussi de rendre un juste hommage à des vies longtemps jugées indignes d’intérêt.</strong> Telle est la démarche d’Abdellah Taïa dans l’ouvrage <a href="https:// ... Show More
47m 42s
Jun 2023
What Communes and Other Radical Experiments in Living Together Reveal
<p>“Today’s future-positive writers critique our economies while largely seeming to ignore that anything might be amiss in our private lives,” writes Kristen Ghodsee. Even our most ambitious visions of utopia tend to focus on outcomes that can be achieved through public policy — ... Show More
1h 10m
Dec 2020
Charlotte Brontë, Revisted
Charlotte didn't let her circumstances and the discouragement of others stand in the way of her goal of becoming a published author; she got knocked down over and over before she was able to present the world with one of the most beloved heroines in literary history. Along the wa ... Show More
2h 3m
Dec 2023
79 | What Could It Mean to Say, “Capitalism Causes Sexism and Racism”? with Professor Vanessa Wills
<p>In this episode, we are joined by George Washington University Associate Professor Vanessa Wills to discuss her article “What Could It Mean to Say, ‘Capitalism Causes Sexism and Racism’?” We try to figure out why critics badly understand the Marxist concept of causation as it ... Show More
1h 4m
Sep 2021
Miriam Margolyes
<p>You are the sum of everyone who’s come before you in your family, and it can be useful to learn about your ancestors in order to understand how much of their character is in you. Actress Miriam Margolyes has a passion for genealogy and family trees; in this chat with Fearne, s ... Show More
43m 11s
Sep 2021
Sad and Twisted Stories
This week, Thea Lenarduzzi and Lucy Dallas are joined by Skye C. Cleary to discuss Simone de Beauvoir’s ‘lost’ novel, ‘The Inseparables’, published almost seventy years after it was written; Anna Picard reviews a very dark production of ‘Rigoletto’ at the Royal Opera House; plus, ... Show More
49m 7s
Listen to millions of songs and podcasts on Anghami