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Recall This Book
Free-ranging discussion of books from the past that cast a sideways light on today's world. Recall This Book is hosted by Elizabeth Ferry, Professor of Anthropology at Brandeis University and John Plotz, Barbara Mandel Professor of the Humanities at Brandeis University and co-founder of the Brandeis Educational Justice Initiative.
March 12, 2026
Imperial Depths
The notion of abolishing prisons strikes some as an impossible dream: could we could reasonably conceive of a society that responded to harm without t…
February 19, 2026
Helen Garner Hacking Away at the Adverbs
In this RTB and Novel Dialogue episode from 2021, Helen Garner sits down with John and Elizabeth McMahon, a distinguished scholar of Australian liter…
February 5, 2026
Jewish Assimilation, Integration and the Dreyfus Affair (JP)
When it comes to the condition of Jews in Christian Europe, France was long known as the haven and heartland of integration and of toleration. And yet…
January 29, 2026
The Drama of Celebrity with Sharon Marcus
As Oscar Season rolls around, Recall This Book looks back to John's 2019 discussion with Columbia University professor Sharon Marcus about The Drama o…
December 18, 2025
162 Carlo Rotella's Books in Dark Times (JP)
For our Pandemic-era Books in Dark Times series, RTB spoke in 2020 with Carlo Rotella of Boston College. Rotella is the author of such gems as Good W…
December 4, 2025
161 One Battle After Another: A West Newton Cinema Discussion with Peter Coviello and Ethan Warren (JP)
One Battle After Another, the spirited and controversial Oscar contender from Paul Thomas Anderson, premiered in September. That opening weekend featu…
November 20, 2025
160* Hannah Arendt's Refugee Politics (JP)
John's “Arendt's Refugee Politics” came out in Public Books in early November. He made the case that his favorite political philosopher, Hannah Arendt…
October 30, 2025
Glenn Patterson
In Belfast, good fences can make for bad neighbors. David Cunningham ( Wash U. sociologist, author of There’s Something Happening Here and Klansville…
October 16, 2025
Ben Fountain in Dark Times (JP)
Ben Fountain is far more than just the author of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, which won RTB hearts and minds (and the National Book Award) long be…
October 2, 2025
Mangrum's Comical Computation (JP)
When does comedy become more than a laugh? Ben Mangrum of MIT joins RtB to discuss The Comedy of Computation: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and L…
September 18, 2025
Merve Emre on Natalia Ginzburg’s “The Dry Heart”
RtB loves the present-day shadows cast by neglected books, which can suddenly loom up out of the backlit past. So, you won’t be shocked to know that J…
September 4, 2025
Hannah Arendt's Lessons on Love and Disobedience
An Arendt expert has arrived at Arendt-obsessed Recall This Book. Lyndsey Stonebridge discusses her widely praised 2024 We Are Free to Change the Worl…
August 7, 2025
Planetary Boundaries are Non-Negotiable
With influential series on California, on the terraforming of Mars, and on human civilization as reshaped by rising tides, Kim Stanley Robinson has …
July 3, 2025
What Hannah Arendt Has to Teach Us about Anticipatory Despair (JP)
John recently published “Lying in Politics: Hannah Arendt’s Antidote to Anticipatory Despair" in Public Books. It makes the case against anticipatory …
June 7, 2025
Why I Paneled: A Backwards Glance by Kristin Mahoney and Nasser Mufti (JP)
In RTB 151, you heard the Kristin, Nasser and John discussing what might happen before their Northeastern Victorian Studies Association conference act…
June 5, 2025
Why I Panel, Part One: Kristin Mahoney, Nasser Mufti (JP)
Most scholars are both haunted, even undone, by the task of writing papers for peers and traveling to strange campuses to deliver them. Yet we keep it…
May 15, 2025
The Comic Novel Explored and Adored (JP)
Back in 2019, John spoke with the celebrated comic novelist Stephen McCauley. Nobody knows more about the comic novel than Steve--his latest is You On…
May 2, 2025
"I have not Finished..."
Emilie Diouf of Brandeis English, whose monograph on genocide and trauma is forthcoming, joins John to speak with the celebrated French journalist an…
April 17, 2025
Scientists Cooperate while Humanists Ruminate (EF, JP)
Back in 2021, John and Elizabeth sat down with Brandeis string theorist Albion Lawrence to discuss cooperation versus solitary study across discipline…
April 3, 2025
Ieva Jusionyte on American Guns in Mexico: Exit Wounds (EF, JP)
John and Elizabeth had the chance to talk with Ieva Jusionyte, anthropologist, journalist, emergency medical technician. Her award-winning books inclu…