This week we're tackling Steven Pinker's 900 page dissection of the reasons why violence, torture and war have declined over the last 10,000 years. Was it an indeterminate mixture of politics, economics, technology and serendipity? Or did some European guys write some books that said murder was bad? Special thanks to Philip Dwyer, Eleanor Janega, David M. ... Show More
Dec 2020
RU121: Dr Vanessa Sinclair On Violence, Rendering Unconscious, Why War, Freud, Einstein
On this episode of Rendering Unconscious Podcast, I discuss violence in an array of forms including intimate partner and gun violence, and read excerpts from On Psychoanalysis and Violence: Contemporary Lacanian Perspectives (Routledge, 2018), Rendering Unconscious: Psychoanalyti ... Show More
1h 10m
Jun 2023
Seeing ourselves through darkness
When we find ourselves in a dark place, what if we didn't "lighten things up"? Sean Illing talks with philosopher Mariana Alessandri, whose new book Night Vision offers a new way of understanding our dark moods and experiences like depression, pain, and grief. Alessandri describe ... Show More
56 m
Jun 2021
Alisse Waterston and Charlotte Corden, "Light in Dark Times: The Human Search for Meaning" (U Toronto Press, 2020)
Today I spoke to anthropologist Alisse Waterston and artist Charlotte Corden to ask them questions, such as: What will become of us in these trying times? How will we pass the time that we have on earth? These questions draw on their gorgeously rendered graphic form book, Light i ... Show More
1h 28m