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Big Ideas
Religion September 16, 2023

An Ethology of Religion and Art

Belief as Behavior

Bryan Rennie

Hosted by Caleb Zakarin
Drawing from sources including the ethology of art and the cognitive science of religion, An Ethology of Religion and Art: Belief as Behavior (Routledge, 2020) proposes an improved understanding of both art …

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Interviews with scholars promoting big ideas.

Politics & Polemics September 16, 2023

Splitsville USA

A Democratic Argument for Breaking Up the United States

Christopher F. Zurn

Hosted by Keith Krueger
At the end of the day, I have faith in the wisdom of democracy: the idea that good political solutions only arise from widely dispersed discussion, debate and decision among …
Critical Theory September 13, 2023

Seeing Others

How to Redefine Worth in a Divided World

Michèle Lamont

Hosted by Dave O'Brien
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How can we challenge and change inequalities? In Seeing Others: How Recognition Works— and How It Can Heal a Divided World (Atria, 2023), Michele Lamont, Professor of Sociology and African and African …
Philosophy September 12, 2023

Mind As Metaphor

A Defence of Mental Fictionalism

Adam Toon

Hosted by Carrie Figdor
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Folk psychology (on a standard reading) is the way we attribute contentful mental states to others in order to explain and predict their behavior – for example, saying that John …
African American Studies September 12, 2023

The Black Reparations Project

A Handbook for Racial Justice

William Darity, A. Kirsten Mullen, and Lucas Hubbard

Hosted by Deidre Tyler
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A surge in interest in black reparations is taking place in America on a scale not seen since the Reconstruction Era. The Black Reparations Project: A Handbook for Racial Justice …
Psychology September 9, 2023

Escaping Maya's Palace

Decoding an Ancient Myth to Heal the Hidden Madness of Modern Civilization

Richard Sclove

Hosted by Susan Grelock-Yusem
Richard Sclove’s newest book — Escaping Maya’s Palace: Decoding an Ancient Myth to Reveal and Heal the Hidden Madness of Modern Civilization (Karavelle Press, 2023)— won a 2023 Gold Nautlilus Book …
African American Studies September 9, 2023

Black Dignity

The Struggle Against Domination

Vincent W. Lloyd

Hosted by Morteza Hajizadeh
This radical work by one of the leading young scholars of Black thought delineates a new concept of Black dignity, yet one with a long history in Black writing and …
Religion September 1, 2023

The Epistemology of Spirit Beliefs

Hans Van Eyghen

Hosted by Tiatemsu Longkumer
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Hans Van Eyghen's book The Epistemology of Spirit Beliefs (Routledge, 2023) assesses whether belief in spirits is epistemically justified. It presents two arguments in support of the existence of spirits and …
Almost Good Catholics August 31, 2023

Who’s Afraid of the Catholic Integralists? (with Kevin Vallier)

Thinking about Caesar and God Today

Kevin Vallier

Hosted by Krzysztof Odyniec
Kevin Vallier is a philosophy professor and author of All the Kingdoms of the World: On Radical Religious Alternatives to Liberalism (Oxford UP, 2023), a new book about Catholic Integralism …
Library Science August 30, 2023

Ownership of Knowledge

Beyond Intellectual Property

Dagmar Schafer, Annapurna Mamidipudi, and Marius Buning

Hosted by Jen Hoyer
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Ownership of Knowledge: Beyond Intellectual Property (MIT Press, 2023) provides a framework for knowledge ownership that challenges the mechanisms of inequality in modern society. Scholars of science, technology, medicine, and …
Psychology August 29, 2023

The Philosophy of Envy

Sara Protasi

Hosted by Morteza Hajizadeh
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Envy is almost universally condemned and feared. But is its bad reputation always warranted? In The Philosophy of Envy (Cambridge UP, 2022), Sara Protasi argues that envy is more multifaceted …
General History August 27, 2023

Why Empires Fall

Rome, America, and the Future of the West

Peter Heather and John Rapley

Hosted by Charles Coutinho
Over the last three centuries, the West rose to dominate the planet. Then, around the start of the new millennium, history took a dramatic turn. Faced with economic stagnation and …
Van Leer Institute Series on Ideas with Renee Garfinkel August 27, 2023

Distrust

Big Data, Data-Torturing, and the Assault on Science

Gary Smith

Hosted by Renee Garfinkel
There is no doubt science is currently suffering from a credibility crisis. Gary Smith's book Distrust: Big Data, Data-Torturing, and the Assault on Science (Oxford UP, 2023) argues that, ironically, science's …
The Imperfect Buddha Podcast August 22, 2023

Meditating Three Minutes a Day

A Conversation with Richard Dixey

Richard Dixey

Hosted by Matthew O'Connell
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After a month or two of absence, the podcast returns for a new season, beginning with an unexpectedly wide ranging conversation with Dr. Richard Dixey. Richard holds a Ph.D. from …
Public Policy August 21, 2023

We've Got You Covered

Rebooting American Health Care

Liran Einav and Amy Finkelstein

Hosted by John Emrich
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Few of us need convincing that the American health insurance system needs reform. But many of the existing proposals focus on expanding one relatively successful piece of the system or …
American West August 18, 2023

Peace and Friendship

An Alternative History of the American West

Stephen Aron

Hosted by Stephen Hausmann
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The history of the American West has typically been told in one of two ways: as triumph, or as tragedy. Stephen Aron, accomplished scholar of the West, Professor Emeritus at UCLA, and …
World Affairs August 11, 2023

From the Pandemic to Utopia

The Future Begins Now

Boaventura de Sousa Santos

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
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The coronavirus pandemic forces us to rethink our contemporaneity. It has brought to the surface dimensions of human fragility that partially contradict the euphoria and human hubris of the fourth …
Science, Technology, and Society August 11, 2023

Darwinism as Religion

What Literature Tells Us about Evolution

Michael Ruse

Hosted by Morteza Hajizadeh
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The Darwinian Revolution--the change in thinking sparked by Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, which argued that all organisms including humans are the end product of a long, slow …
Psychoanalysis August 11, 2023

Ruptures in the American Psyche

Containing Destructive Populism in Perilous Times

Michael J Diamond

Hosted by Karyne Messina
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Michael J. Diamond's book Ruptures in the American Psyche: Containing Destructive Populism in Perilous Times (Phoenix Publishing, 2022) describes Trumpism: the strong allegiance to former President Donald Trump that is in …
Almost Good Catholics August 10, 2023

Idolatry and Idle Hands

From Aaron’s Golden Calf to AI

Jacob Howland

Hosted by Krzysztof Odyniec
Philosophy professor Jacob Howland applies the lessons of Greek classics and Jewish scripture to this our curious moment at the inception of Artificial intelligence when computers are doing more and …