The podcast of Liberties, a Journal of Culture and Politics. LibertiesTalk will be an irregular series of wide-ranging conversations on culture and politics hosted by Celeste Marcus, the managing editor of Liberties. These lively discussions will feature our writers and the larger Liberties community.
On this episode of Required Reading, Morten Høi Jensen and Lance Richardson discuss Richardson’s new biography Peter Matthiessen, True Nature: The Pilgrimage of Peter Matthiessen, exploring the author’s environmentalism, his time working for the CIA, and his fascination with the Bigfoot Legend."
Liberties Journal hosts a monthly conversation in this iteration of which dozens of attendees ask and answer the question Does Success Help?
On November 7th, 2019, the Indian government revoked Aatish Taseer's Indian citizenship. Return to Self: Excursions in Exile is a memoir about processing that violent ejection; the meaning of self after statehood; and the gross brutality, so recognizable to Americans todaym, which forced that rupture.
Daniel Elkind and Morten Høi Jensen discuss Elkind's new book Dr Chizhevsky's Chandelier: The Decline of the USSR and other Heresies of the Twentieth Century.
Oliver Moody and Morten Høi Jensen discuss Moody's new book, Baltic, and discuss how the Baltic Sea and the countries that surround it serve as a sort of metaphor for the entirety of Europe.
Luka Ivan Jukić and Morten Høi Jensen discuss Luka's recent book, Central Europe: The Death of a Civilization and the Life of an Idea, and ask and answer whether "Central Europe" even exists.
Alissa Wilkinson and Morten Høi Jensen discuss Wilkinson's most recent book We Tell Ourselves Stories: Joan Didion and the American Dream Machine. The book is about Didion, but it's also about America in her lifetime. This episode includes talk about the Dustbowl, Hays Code, Bonnie and Clyde and the human addiction to delusion.
Ben Libman and Morten Høi Jensen discuss Ben's new book The Third Solitude, religion, tradition, and a modern Jew's relationship with and responsibility to his inheritance.
Guy Stagg joins Required Reading's new host Morten Høi Jensen to discuss his new book The World Within. On writing the book: "All my life I have dreamed of retreat. Of letting go each responsibility and cutting every tie. And I know I’m not the only one. But, when I learnt about the creative figures who left their lives behind, I began to ask myself: what is gained and what is lost when we withdraw from the world?"
Liberties Journal hosts a monthly conversation in this iteration of which dozens of attendees ask and answer the question Is Curiosity Dangerous?
Carlos Fraenkel and Agnes Callard discuss Callard's new book Open Socrates and make the case for a life of philosophical inquiry.
Scott Spillman talks with Celeste Marcus on his recent book Making Sense of Slavery which illustrates how the study of slavery has been at the heart of American intellectual and political life for the past two centuries.
