This week’s episode on the great political fictions is about Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726) – part adventure story, part satire of early-eighteenth-century party politics, but above all a coruscating reflection on the failures of human perspective and self-knowledge. Why do we find it so hard to see ourselves for who we really are? What makes us ... Show More
Jun 2023
Ep 594 - Gulliver's Travels, by Jonathan Swift
Meet Gulliver, a traveling English surgeon. First he's big, then he's small. Next he's wise, then he's a Yahoo! To wit, Swift's seminal satire is realer, grosser, and really grosser than either of us knew. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at bett ... Show More
1h 16m
Apr 2025
The Gay Science #14 (III.148-III.175)
Renaissance & Reformation, the critique of saintly virtue, the color we have thrown onto life and how it differs from that of the ancient world, and Nietzsche's attempt to "untangle the knot" of his moralization of the world by returning to the style of the moral maxim. Rapid fir ... Show More
2h 5m
Feb 2024
The Returns: Epiphany
Each week on ‘The Returns,’ we pull a different episode from our own archive to help put our present politics into historical context. This episode, Epiphany, first ran in 2021, as the finale to Season 2, which was all about lies, fakes, frauds, and hoaxes. In this episode, Jill ... Show More
46m 37s
Apr 2017
Episode Two: Enlightenment and Tyranny
Topics include: The Enlightenment, absolute monarchy, Portugal, Spain, Italy, and the Netherlands Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
28m 43s