Judith Butler joins Adam Shatz for the first episode of Human Conditions to look at Jean-Paul Sartre’s 1946 book Anti-Semite and Jew, originally published in French as Réflexions Sur La Question Juive. Sartre’s ‘portraits’ of the ‘anti-Semite’ and the ‘Jew’, as he saw them, caused controversy at the time for directly confronting anti-Jewish bigotry in France ... Show More
Jul 13
London Revisited: The Road to Civil War
When James VI of Scotland arrived in London in 1603 to become the first ‘King of Great Britain’, expectations were high. They were soon disappointed, not least for the Catholics who tried to blow him and half of Westminster up in 1605. But the plot failed, and with James’s reign ... Show More
26m 53s
Jul 5
Narrative Poems: ‘The Ruined Cottage’ and ‘Michael’ by William Wordsworth
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was one of the first people to hear ‘The Ruined Cottage’, read aloud to him on a visit to the Wordsworths in 1797, and he later described it as ‘one of the most beautiful poems in the language’. Like ‘Michael’ (1800), it depicts the disintegration of ordin ... Show More
16m 56s
Jun 28
Nature in Crisis: ‘Braiding Sweetgrass’ by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Through folktales, memoir and hard science, Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass argues for the intertwining of Indigenous knowledge systems and empirical science, to support ‘mutual flourishing’ between humans and the environment. Braiding Sweetgrass was an enormous success ... Show More
15m 19s
Sep 2024
Jean-Paul Sartre: 'Being and Nothingness'
This week, a chapter from a new LRB audiobook, Becoming a Philosopher: Spinoza to Sartre by Jonathan Rée. This collection of ten biographical pieces, read by Rée, describes the lives of some of most influential thinkers of the past four hundred years and the radical and sometimes ... Show More
36m 41s
Nov 2023
Next Year on Close Readings: Human Conditions
In the second of three introductions to our full Close Readings programme for 2024, Adam Shatz presents his series, Human Conditions, in which he’ll be talking separately to three guests – Judith Butler, Pankaj Mishra and Brent Hayes Edwards – about some of the most revolutionary ... Show More
26m 33s
Oct 2019
#173 — Anti-Semitism and Its Discontents
<p>Sam Harris speaks with Bari Weiss about her book "How to Fight anti-Semitism." They discuss the three different strands of anti-Semitism (rightwing, leftwing, and Islamic), the Tree of Life shooting in Pittsburgh, the difference between anti-Semitism and other forms of racism, ... Show More
28m 5s
Oct 2018
Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, & Existentialism (w/ Existential Comics)
<p>Existential Comics (aka Corey Mohler) joins Brett to discuss the philosophy, politics, and historical context of Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. Together they investigate the contradictions between Marxism and Existentialism and discuss the public dispute that ended Camus a ... Show More
1h 21m