The Podcast Browser

Emily Eakin – The Frenchmen

Or, My Life in Theory

Interview with Emily Eakin about her book The Frenchmen: Or, My Life in Theory. Explores the rise of French theory in 1980s American academia, led by thinkers like Foucault and Derrida, as a blend of intellectual rigour, a shortcut to cultural sophistication, and a form of rebellion. It transitioned French philosophy into cultural criticism, influencing fields like identity politics. Details the shift from existentialism, the structuralist idea of language controlling humans, and Derrida’s concept of deferred meaning. Highlights Foucault’s views on power and control, particularly his Panopticon metaphor. Examines the enduring relevance of these theories, especially their surprising resonance with the advent of AI and large language models, which prompt philosophical questions about language existing without human thought.

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Nicholas Boggs – Baldwin

A Love Story

Interview with Nicholas Boggs about his book Baldwin: A Love Story. Explores the life of writer James Baldwin, focusing on Baldwin’s alternative kinship structures and networks of love across New York, Paris, and Istanbul. Highlights key relationships with mentor Buford Delaney, Swiss artist Lucien Happersberger, and French painter Yoran Kazak. Explains how these deep collaborative bonds and personal experiences of yearning directly fueled Baldwin’s progressive, prophetic work on race, gender, and love.

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Michael Powell – The Cities That Said Yes to Drugs

Interview with Michael Powell about his Atlantic essay The Cities That Said Yes to Drugs. Explores the evolution and consequences of harm reduction policies, particularly focusing on Vancouver’s model and its replication in cities like Seattle. Discusses how initial intentions – reducing stigma and keeping drug users alive – have led to unintended outcomes, including increased drug-related deaths and the emergence of open-air drug markets in vulnerable neighbourhoods due to permissive policies. Highlights the tension between compassionate harm reduction and community safety, examining issues like safe supply programmes exacerbating drug dealing, the disproportionate impact on working-class areas, and the effectiveness of mandatory treatment versus merely ‘meeting people where they are’.

Anand Gopal – Days of Love and Rage

A Story of Ordinary People Forging a Revolution

Interview with Anand Gopal about his book Days of Love and Rage: A Story of Ordinary People Forging a Revolution. Uses personal stories from the town of Manbij to challenge simplistic narratives about the Syrian Revolution. Demonstrates that core needs like bread, order, and justice often outweighed liberal aspirations when confronted by war and socio-economic divisions, paving the way for groups like ISIS. Explores the complex interplay of human experience and political change, examining what truly enables a successful political community beyond mere freedom.

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Phil Tinline – Andy Burnham’s Great Power Struggle

Interview with Phil Tinline about his Prospect article Andy Burnham’s Great Power Struggle. Discusses how Andy Burnham’s theory of power, shaped by the Hillsborough tragedy and his mayoral tenure, posits that parliamentary whipping effectively puts 50-odd unelected Whitehall mandarins in charge, governing in the interest of the southeast of the UK. Argues that Burnham’s worldview is too narrow, targeting only Whitehall mandarins while ignoring private corporate dominance. Suggests that to combat right-wing populism, Burnham must successfully weave concrete economic reforms into a compelling narrative of structural change.

RIP Gloria Steinem

Gloria Steinem has died at 92 (NY Times obituary). This 2019 interview discusses her life and work: formative experiences – including her illegal abortion and travels to India – that shaped her feminist activism; societal expectations around marriage and career; her mother’s unlived potential; the media’s portrayal of feminists; and the ongoing fight for equality and individual authenticity. Draws from her books My Life on the Road, Revolutions from Within, and Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions.

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Andrew Leigh – The Shortest History of Innovation

Interview with Andrew Leigh about his book The Shortest History of Innovation. Explores human innovation from the wheel to artificial intelligence, debunking the ‘lone genius’ myth by emphasising tinkering, diverse teams, and global trade. Highlights how transformative innovations – from penicillin and the printing press to the stirrup and flush toilet – often bring unforeseen societal disruption. Discusses why certain societies innovate more, the impact of agriculture, urbanisation, and current challenges like AI and climate change.

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See also episodes with Andrew Leigh about earlier books. And other episodes on innovation.

W Brian Arthur – Complexity and the Economy

Interview with W Brian Arthur drawing from his book Complexity and the Economy. Explains how traditional economics simplifies complex systems, assuming rationality and equilibrium. Introduces the El Farol game theory problem, demonstrating how individual adaptive decisions, not deductive optimisation, create emergent, dynamic patterns – a concept physicists grasped more readily than economists. Discusses how complexity economics drops these restrictive assumptions, viewing the economy as an evolving ecology of diverse, imperfectly informed agents. This approach, mirroring shifts in other sciences, enables understanding real-world phenomena like market bubbles and crashes, moving beyond static equilibrium models towards ‘messy vitality’.

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