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Intellectual History
High Theory April 1, 2022

Welcome to High Theory!

Kim Adams and Soronik Bosu

Hosted by Kim Adams and Saronik Bosu
Welcome to High Theory! High Theory is a podcast in which we get high on the substance of theory. And we ask the three standard questions, to each other, and …

Intellectual History

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Interviews with intellectual historians about their new books.

Biblical Studies June 28, 2022

Satan and the Problem of Evil

From the Bible to the Early Church Fathers

Archie T. Wright

Hosted by Jackson Reinhardt
Satan's transformation from opaque functionary to chief antagonist is one of the most striking features of the development of Jewish theology in the Second Temple Period and beyond. Once no …
Intellectual History June 28, 2022

The Political Writings of Alexander Hamilton

Bradford P. Wilson and Carson Holloway, eds.

Hosted by Hope J. Leman
How much does the average person know about Alexander Hamilton (1755 or 1757-1804)? Would we have guessed that this hero of many fiscal conservatives wrote, “A national debt, if it …
General History June 28, 2022

Benjamin Franklin

Cultural Protestant

D. G. Hart

Hosted by Zachary McCulley
Benjamin Franklin grew up in a devout Protestant family with limited prospects for wealth and fame. By hard work, limitless curiosity, native intelligence, and luck (what he called "providence"), Franklin …
Literary Studies June 27, 2022

Ahab Unbound

Melville and the Materialist Turn

Meredith Farmer and Jonathan D. S. Schroeder

Hosted by John Yargo
Today’s guests are Meredith Farmer and Jonathan D.S. Schroeder, the co-editors of a bracing new collection of essays about the figure of Ahab in Melville’s novel Moby-Dick. Meredith is the …
Literary Studies June 24, 2022

Eternalized Fragments

Reclaiming Aesthetics in Contemporary World Fiction

W. Michelle Wang

Hosted by Gargi Binju
Eternalized Fragments: Reclaiming Aesthetics in Contemporary World Fiction (Ohio State UP, 2020) explores the implications of treating literature as art--examining the evolving nature of aesthetic inquiry in literary studies, with …
Princeton UP Ideas Podcast June 24, 2022

Flying Snakes and Griffin Claws

And Other Classical Myths, Historical Oddities, and Scientific Curiosities

Adrienne Mayor

Hosted by Mark Klobas
Adrienne Mayor is renowned for exploring the borders of history, science, archaeology, anthropology, and popular knowledge to find historical realities and scientific insights--glimmering, long-buried nuggets of truth--embedded in myth, legends …
Biography June 24, 2022

German, Jew, Muslim, Gay

The Life and Times of Hugo Marcus

Marc David Baer

Hosted by Armanc Yildiz
Hugo Marcus (1880–1966) was a man of many names and many identities. Born a German Jew, he converted to Islam and took the name Hamid, becoming one of the most …
Indian Religions June 23, 2022

The Transformation of Tamil Religion

Ramalinga Swamigal and Modern Dravidian Sainthood

Srilata Raman

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Srilata Raman's book The Transformation of Tamil Religion: Ramalinga Swamigal and Modern Dravidian Sainthood (Routledge, 2022) analyses the religious ideology of a Tamil reformer and saint, Ramalinga Swamigal of the 19th …
Neuroscience June 23, 2022

A Synthesizing Mind

A Memoir from the Creator of Multiple Intelligences Theory

Howard Gardner

Hosted by Galina Limorenko
Howard Gardner's Frames of Mind was that rare publishing phenomenon--a mind-changer. Widely read by the general public as well as by educators, this influential book laid out Gardner's theory of …
Critical Theory June 22, 2022

The Homoerotics of Orientalism

Joseph A. Boone

Hosted by Morteza Hajizadeh
One of the largely untold stories of Orientalism is the degree to which the Middle East has been associated with "deviant" male homosexuality by scores of Western travelers, historians, writers …
Arguing History June 21, 2022

Ukrainian Nationalism in Historical Context

A Discussion with John-Paul Himka, David R. Stone, and Alexander Watson

John-Paul Himka, David R. Stone, and Alexander Watson

Hosted by Charles Coutinho
In the midst of the ongoing war between the Russian Federation and Ukraine, it is vital that the lay-educated public understand the historical origins of the conflict. It is with …
Biography June 20, 2022

Life Under the Palms

The Sublime World of the Anti-Colonialist Jacob Haafner

Paul Van Der Velde

Hosted by Cresa Pugh
Jacob Gotfried Haafner (1754–1809) was one of the most popular European travel writers of the early nineteenth century, writing in the Romantic mode. A Dutch citizen, Haafner spent more than …
Van Leer Institute Series on Ideas with Renee Garfinkel June 20, 2022

Professor of Apocalypse

The Many Lives of Jacob Taubes

Jerry Z. Muller

Hosted by Renee Garfinkel
Genius or Charlatan? This is the story of Jacob Taubes, the controversial Jewish thinker whose tortured path led him into the heart of twentieth-century intellectual life Scion of a distinguished …
Philosophy June 20, 2022

How Things Are

An Introduction to Buddhist Metaphysics

Mark Siderits

Hosted by Malcolm Keating
Mark Siderits’ How Things Are: An Introduction to Buddhist Metaphysics (Oxford University Press, 2022) is a wide-ranging survey of how Buddhist philosophers think about the nature of the world. The …
Critical Theory June 16, 2022

Science and Religion

A Very Short Introduction. Second Edition

Thomas Dixon and Adam Shapiro

Hosted by Morteza Hajizadeh
Debates about science and religion are rarely out of the news. Whether it concerns what's being taught in schools, clashes between religious values and medical recommendations, or questions about how …
High Theory June 16, 2022

Economics

A Discussion with Matt Seybold

Matt Seybold

Hosted by Kim Adams and Saronik Bosu
Matt Seybold talks about the development of economics as a discourse inside and outside the academy, its success in making itself felt to be the only discourse that can talk …
General History June 16, 2022

The Atlantic Realists

Empire and International Political Thought Between Germany and the United States

Matthew Specter

Hosted by Sean Byrnes
In The Atlantic Realists: Empire and International Political Thought Between Germany and the United States (Stanford UP, 2022), intellectual historian Matthew Specter offers a boldly revisionist interpretation of "realism," a …
Indian Religions June 16, 2022

Rethinking 'Classical Yoga' and Buddhism

Meditation, Metaphors and Materiality

Karen O'Brien-Kop

Hosted by Raj Balkaran
Rethinking 'Classical Yoga' and Buddhism (Bloomsbury, 2021) revisits the early systemic formation of meditation practices called 'yoga' in South Asia by employing metaphor theory. Karen O'Brien-Kop also develops an alternative …
Literary Studies June 16, 2022

Improbability, Chance, and the Nineteenth-Century Realist Novel

Adam Grener

Hosted by Su Min Kim
In Improbability, Chance, and the Nineteenth-Century Realist Novel (Ohio State UP, 2020), Adam Grener advances a new approach to evaluating realism in fiction by arguing that nineteenth-century literary realism …