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A Podcast Series about Polymath Robert Eisler
A Podcast Series about Polymath Robert Eisler August 31, 2020

A Very Square Peg

A Discussion with Brian Collins

Dr. Brian Collins

Hosted by Marshall Poe
Today I talked with Dr. Brian Collins, the creator of "A Very Square Peg." We talked about: --How he discovered Eilser in a used bookstore in Ann Arbor --How he …

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A Podcast Series about Polymath Robert Eisler

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A Podcast Series about Polymath Robert Eisler August 4, 2020

A Very Square Peg

Vanity of Vanities

Dr. Brian Collins

Hosted by Brian Collins
In this episode, I look at Eisler’s last days in England, where he found that the Oxford readership he had been promised before being sent to Dachau was taken by …
A Podcast Series about Polymath Robert Eisler July 28, 2020

A Very Square Peg

A Very Difficult Man to Kill

Dr. Brian Collins

Hosted by Brian Collins
Following the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in March of 1938, Robert Eisler wrote to Oxford asking about being appointed to the Wilde Readership in Comparative and Natural Religion …
A Podcast Series about Polymath Robert Eisler July 21, 2020

A Very Square Peg

The Christ Vision

Dr. Brian Collins

Hosted by Brian Collins
Robert Whitehead of London, a self-described “Business Man” who was “no Churchman and not a Jesus worshipper, much as I admire him,” wrote to Robert Eisler on New Year’s Eve …
A Podcast Series about Polymath Robert Eisler July 14, 2020

A Very Square Peg

Negative Interest

Dr. Brian Collins

Hosted by Brian Collins
Warning: Economics. In this episode, we begin with Eisler’s testimony before the skeptical Senators of the Committee on Banking and Currency in Washington, D.C. on January 20, 1934, in which …
A Podcast Series about Polymath Robert Eisler July 7, 2020

A Very Square Peg

The Slavonic Josephus

Dr. Brian Collins

Hosted by Brian Collins
In this episode, we focus on one of Eisler’s most controversial works, a reconstruction of the 1st-century Roman Jewish historian Josephus’ account of the events surrounding the death of Jesus …
A Podcast Series about Polymath Robert Eisler June 30, 2020

A Very Square Peg

Women’s Coats and Beach Cabanas

Dr. Brian Collins

Hosted by Brian Collins
In this episode, we examine the rivalry/friendship between Eisler and the great scholar of Jewish mysticism Gershom Scholem and reassess Eisler’s infamous meeting with Scholem and Walter Benjamin in Paris …
A Podcast Series about Polymath Robert Eisler June 23, 2020

A Very Square Peg

Eisler vs. the Flat Earth

Dr. Brian Collins

Hosted by Brian Collins
In this episode, we talk with Michael Gubser about the pioneering art historian Alois Riegl, one of Eisler’s teachers in Vienna and a major influence on his thought. Then we …
A Podcast Series about Polymath Robert Eisler June 16, 2020

A Very Square Peg

Value Theory

Dr. Brian Collins

Hosted by Brian Collins
In this episode (# 2), we discuss Eisler’s early years as a member of the Jewish bourgeoisie in turn-of-the-century Vienna with historian Steven Beller. We also hear from the closest …
A Podcast Series about Polymath Robert Eisler June 9, 2020

A Very Square Peg

Man Into Wolf

Dr. Brian Collins

Hosted by Brian Collins
In this episode, we discuss how I discovered Robert Eisler’s Man into Wolf: An Anthropological Interpretation of Sadism, Masochism, and Lycanthropy and unpack the book’s argument that modern humans are …