Podcasts you like

[celedhring]

It's a good 'un. As expected, Dalrymple is an excellent storyteller.

Y'all got me hoooked on it. Immensely informative and entertaining, although I wish they devoted more episodes to the EIC than they did to that friggin' diamond.

I also noticed they started one on the Ottoman empire which is one of those subjects I always wanted to learn a bit more about.

[Admiral Yi]

Any thoughts on Lex Fridman podcast?  I listened to parts of a couple of episodes recently, as he's popular and he interviewed some guests I find interesting.  I'm getting a vibe that there is no there there, although I can't put my finger on exactly what I find unsettling.

He seems like a bright and thoughtful guy but in a crowded talk market he's lacking that oomph.  Too soft spoken and I've never heard him say anything all that interesting.

[Habbaku]

It's a good 'un. As expected, Dalrymple is an excellent storyteller.

Y'all got me hoooked on it. Immensely informative and entertaining, although I wish they devoted more episodes to the EIC than they did to that friggin' diamond.

I also noticed they started one on the Ottoman empire which is one of those subjects I always wanted to learn a bit more about.

Same RE: the diamond, but for free entertainment it's hard to complain.

[Legbiter]

The rest is history is pretty good. Tamas recommended it.

[Sheilbh]

Y'all got me hoooked on it. Immensely informative and entertaining, although I wish they devoted more episodes to the EIC than they did to that friggin' diamond.

Yes. Although I'm sure it's not because of the podcast just general concerns, I believe Camilla won't wear the koh-i-noor in the coronation which is probably for the best.

I found the episode on Jinnah really interesting because I've always wanted to know more about him and understand his perspective (got a bit from The Nine Lives of Pakistan too - recommended by a friend and really good) because I think everything I've read about independence and partition has been far more sympathetic to Nehru and Gandhi. But they did a few on independence struggle figures which I enjoyed.

I also noticed they started one on the Ottoman empire which is one of those subjects I always wanted to learn a bit more about.

It's good so far. I'm not sure who they'll do next - the Mughals would be good - but I'd love them to keep doing more about the Eurasian land empires because, obviously, here when we talk about "empire" we mean European and maritime. But big empires like the Ottomans or the Mongols are a bit of a blind spot at least for me.

[Josquius]

Maybe of interest to some. For something lighter.
I've gotten into the parenting hell podcast of late. Oddly entertaining.
https://open.spotify.com/show/1Zuurv8AZFWti60lSXiDgz

[mongers]

Malthus's aunt is on this programme tonight, discussing among other things the influence '1984' had on her 1985 'Handmaiden's tale'. Should be interesting.

Will be available on BBC Sounds and as a podcast after broadcast.

Details here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001kppn

Margaret Atwood
This Cultural Life

Margaret Atwood talks to John Wilson about the formative influences and experiences that shaped her writing. One of the world's bestselling and critically acclaimed authors, Atwood has published over 60 books including novels, short stories, children's fiction, non-fiction and poetry. She's known for stories of human struggle against oppression and brutality, most famously her 1985 novel The Handmaid's Tale, a dystopian vision of America in which women are enslaved. She has twice won the Booker Prize For Fiction, in 2000 for The Blind Assassin and again in 2019 for her sequel to The Handmaid's Tale, The Testaments.

Growing up in remote Canadian woodland with her scientist parents, she traces her career as a story-teller back to sagas that she invented with her older brother as a child, and her first 'novel' written when she was seven. She recalls an opera about fabrics that she wrote and performed at high school for a home economics project, and how she staged puppet shows for children's parties. Margaret Atwood also discusses the huge impact that reading George Orwell had on her, and how his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four especially influenced The Handmaid's Tale. She reveals how that novel - written whilst she was living in Berlin in 1985 - was initially conceived after the 1980 election of President Ronald Reagan and the resurgence of evangelical right-wing politics in America.

[crazy canuck]

An interview with Ehrman on his new book about how Revelation has been warped by modern day Christian theology to predict end times in our age, and particularly in NA.

Something I did not realize is that it started in Britain in the aftermath of the French Revolution.

https://www.npr.org/2023/04/03/1167715957/armageddon-shows-how-literal-readings-of-the-bibles-end-times-affect-modern-time

[Sheilbh]

You might also like this In Our Time episode on the apocalypse - where it's from, how it still shapes our thinking is particularly interesting and also how readings of it change over time:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0054914

French Revolution feels late for reading your times through revelation. Although the Rapture definitely originated in a British - I think Irish clergyman - in the early 19th century (there's another In Our Time on that.

A particularly interesting example is the Orthodox reluctance to include it in the Bible - it still isn't for Ethiopian Christians. The Orthodox forbid reading aloud from Revelations or depicting any scene from it, until the fall of Constantinople which they saw as a precursor of the coming of the Antichrist.

But also there's a lot of parsing our times in the Reformation and for Britain and North America especially the Puritans in the 17th century, for example. The Fifth Monarchists are a really strong example - there's lots of pamphleteers and movements who are entirely interpreting the 17th century British wars through revelation.

They also give the really interesting example of Columbus' Book of Prophecies where he ticks off the things from Revelation that he's done: discovered the garden of Eden (Venezuela); discovered the missing tribes of Israel; made a world emperor (Isabel and Ferdinand).

[crazy canuck]

Thanks 

[mongers]

New series of Screenshot starts, first episode is a special on 'The Long Good Friday' including contributions from Helen Mirren, podcast download here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001kpzy

The Long Good Friday

The Long Good Friday elevated the British gangster film to a level not seen for a decade since Get Carter, and sees London gangster Harold Shand (Bob Hoskins) and his girlfriend Victoria (Helen Mirren) embroiled in a scheme to redevelop parts of London's Docklands with finance from a New York mafia boss.

The film features some prophetic scenes in which Harold espouses a new future for London, a London at the centre of Europe, with opportunity to create incredible wealth - a wealth he would most likely have made had the IRA not started interfering in his affairs.

In this episode of Screenshot, Mark Kermode speaks to Dame Helen Mirren about the changes she made to the script and to her character's role, and also about how her uncle's connections to the London underworld helped her in the part. Mark also talks to tour guide Rob Smith, who leads a tour of the film's locations around London's Docklands.

[crazy canuck]

An engaging interview of Sarah Neiman - author of The Left is Not Woke.

https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/15977818-left-is-not-woke-susan-neiman

A criticism of the Woke from the left.

[grumbler]

An engaging interview of Sarah Neiman - author of The Left is Not Woke.

https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/15977818-left-is-not-woke-susan-neiman

A criticism of the Woke from the left.

It is rather interesting that she struggles as much as anyone to define "woke."  If she is correct and that "woke" means tribal and anti-intellectual support for restitution of wrongs, then "the left" may not be woke, but almost no one else is woke, either.  Certainly those I know who consider themselves woke don't reject the principals of the Enlightenment and leave justice behind.

[crazy canuck]

An engaging interview of Sarah Neiman - author of The Left is Not Woke.

https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-23-ideas/clip/15977818-left-is-not-woke-susan-neiman

A criticism of the Woke from the left.

It is rather interesting that she struggles as much as anyone to define "woke."  If she is correct and that "woke" means tribal and anti-intellectual support for restitution of wrongs, then "the left" may not be woke, but almost no one else is woke, either.  Certainly those I know who consider themselves woke don't reject the principals of the Enlightenment and leave justice behind.

I think that is a valid criticism of her definition. But I think she has a point when she argues that those who engage in identity politics are acting in a tribal rather than universal manner.  One of the terms I have come to loathe is "lived experience" as if one needs to have characteristic X in order to possibly understand an issue related to people with that attribute.

Not to mention it is hard for me to accept that someone in their early 20s has lived or has experience (outside of extreme outliers).  But I recognize that is just me shouting at clouds.    

[grumbler]

I think that is a valid criticism of her definition. But I think she has a point when she argues that those who engage in identity politics are acting in a tribal rather than universal manner.  One of the terms I have come to loathe is "lived experience" as if one needs to have characteristic X in order to possibly understand an issue related to people with that attribute.

Not to mention it is hard for me to accept that someone in their early 20s has lived or has experience (outside of extreme outliers).  But I recognize that is just me shouting at clouds.    

I agree about the identity politics concern, but, again, don't know of any people who consider themselves woke and also reject the universality of the problem of oppression.  I know that such people exist, and call themselves "woke," but to claim that they have the correct definition of woke means accepting the demonizing definition of the term.

The ability of pretty much anyone to define woke as it serves their own interests means that the term really isn't useful in anyone's arguments.  We need some new term that isn't simply generalized "progressive" or "leftist."