Podcasts you like

[Sheilbh]

I think I've mentioned it before but the LRB's Talking Politics podcast is really good - and if I ever say anything interesting I stole it from them.

But they're also doing a special 12 part series to the end of May on the History of Ideas which is well worth listening to. Yesterday's was on Hobbes on the State (particularly relevant now - as we're in quite a Hobbesian moment). Today's episode is Mary Wollstonecraft on Sexual Politics.

Edit: Full list can be found here:
https://www.talkingpoliticspodcast.com/history-of-ideas

[Sheilbh]

Still listening to the History of Ideas series (it will end this month). So far, in addition to Hobbes and Wollstonecraft, we've had:
Constant on liberty, Tocqueville on Democracy, Marx and Engels on Revolution, Gandhi on self-rule, Weber on leadership, Hayek on the Market, Arendt on Action and Fanon on Empire.

Still to come:
MacKinnon on Patriarchy and Fukuyama on History.

This is one of those amazing internet moments - it's just incredible to have access to these 12 hours of free lectures from a Cambridge Professor of Politics, they are all basically first year introduction lectures but fascinating if this isn't your field.

[PRC]

Still listening to the History of Ideas series (it will end this month). So far, in addition to Hobbes and Wollstonecraft, we've had:
Constant on liberty, Tocqueville on Democracy, Marx and Engels on Revolution, Gandhi on self-rule, Weber on leadership, Hayek on the Market, Arendt on Action and Fanon on Empire.

Still to come:
MacKinnon on Patriarchy and Fukuyama on History.

This is one of those amazing internet moments - it's just incredible to have access to these 12 hours of free lectures from a Cambridge Professor of Politics, they are all basically first year introduction lectures but fascinating if this isn't your field.

I've devoured this podcast since seeing your post about it, and it is indeed brilliant.  Thanks for the recommendation.  I found the hosts confession on avoiding Hannah Arendt interesting and that when finally confronting her topics was blown away (but still finding some pretentiousness there).  I've found myself going down the Wikipedia and other rabbit holes on her labour, work, action themes... not to mention ideas raised in other episodes as well.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah - agreed. Glad you've liked but I have the same thing, that it does send me down rabbitholes and I am (maybe) going to read some of the texts now. I think the only one I'd read before was the Wretched of the Earth.

[crazy canuck]

I just binged it all today - I had intended on just listening to the first one on Hobbes.  But I found it so engrossing that I kept listening and now, a few hours later, I want to listen to it all again.

One jarring moment though.  In the lecture on Mackinnon he mention an experience he had travelling in the eastern block countries in 89 at the age of 21.  I realized he and I could have had a beer together when I was doing the same in 89 at the age of 21.  Of course he went on to make something of himself.   

[Tamas]

For me one of the more interesting aspect of that series is that, thanks to the quick summary of so many books, it becomes apparent how much the authors' individual circumstances both personal and historic, influence their thinking (naturally) and thus how they should not be handled as timeless sources of wisdom.

Arendt in particular, irked me with the supposed loss of humanity due to modernism. It stroke me as someone comparing little understood reality iod their present to their imagined idealised version of a past that never existed outside of the literate upper classes that had the rights and the means to be all humanised about their existence.

[crazy canuck]

Is it modernism or the machinery of the state she was addressing?

Your comment that these books are not timeless sources of wisdom is at odds with the premise of the series that Hobbes still has much to offer to help us think about politics in a modern state.  Also think about the observation that the weaknesses of the US system observed by Toucqueville are applicable today.

[Tamas]

Is it modernism or the machinery of the state she was addressing?

Your comment that these books are not timeless sources of wisdom is at odds with the premise of the series that Hobbes still has much to offer to help us think about politics in a modern state.  Also think about the observation that the weaknesses of the US system observed by Toucqueville are applicable today.

Sure its not a universal truth but neither everything that the authors wrote are.

[crazy canuck]

Sure, but they all pose interesting questions about politics in a modern state.

[Sheilbh]

Really good episode of the (normal) Talking Politics with Sarah Churchwell on American Fascism: Then and Now.

[Sheilbh]

So on History of Ideas, they've just released a Q&A and mentioned that they might be doing a follow up season. The Q&A also explains why it (probably) won't include Locke. But sounds like they might do Rousseau.

[Syt]

I'm still following The Delta Flyers, i.e. Garret Wang (Harry Kim) and Robert Duncan McNeil (Tom Paris) where they go through the Star Trek Voyager episodes chronologically. I actually pay $5 to their Patreon to get the extended video with some bonus stuff. It's quite entertaining to have them reminisce about their time on the show, the people they worked with, and also critically viewing the episode.

[Threviel]

I found an interesting Swedish podcast "When we were kings" going through historic football. Made by one of Sweden's best football journalist and some sidekick it spends an episode or two on a specific team season. It could be Milan 88-89, Brazil 2014 or the one I'm listening to now, Real Sociedad 80-81. It's just fascinating to listen to these histories of past events.

There must be some English or even German equivalent. I would be very interested in something similar in any kind of sport really. Any tips?

[Syt]

This popped up in my feed. David Tennant has a podcast; today's episode he interviews Neil Gaiman:

https://pod.link/tennant

[Sheilbh]

Probably of interest to literally just me, but interesting Radio 4 "grand tour" of the thinkers and forces behind British socialism, conservatism and liberalism (episodes show the latest released first - so need to go to page 2 of each to start ).

Socialism:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09t896q/episodes/player?page=2

Conservatism:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b039tp4k/episodes/player?page=2

Liberalism:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06t44pc/episodes/player?page=2