Adam Shatz talks separately to three guests – Judith Butler, Pankaj Mishra and Brent Hayes Edwards – about some of the most revolutionary thought of the 20th century.
Judith, Pankaj and Brent will each discuss four texts over four episodes, as they uncover the inner life of the 20th century through works that have sought to find freedom in different ways and remake the world around them. They explore, among other things, the development of arguments against racism and colonialism, the experience of artistic expression in oppressive conditions and how language has been used in politically substantive ways.
Authors covered: Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Frantz Fanon, Hannah Arendt, V. S. Naipaul, Ashis Nandy, Doris Lessing, Nadezhda Mandelstam, W. E. B. Du Bois, Aimé Césaire, Amiri Baraka and Audre Lorde.
Human Conditions is part of the Close Readings podcast from the London Review of Books.
To listen to the full episodes, subscribe to Close Readings:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq
In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings
Brent Hayes Edwards and Adam Shatz explore Audre Lorde's "Sister Outsider," revealing poetry's power as a tool for liberation and revolution.
10 Nov 2024
‘Black Music’ by Amiri Baraka
Brent Hayes Edwards and Adam Shatz explore Amiri Baraka's 'Black Music,' revealing his insights into the avant-garde jazz scene and his literary approach to music.
10 Oct 2024
‘Discourse on Colonialism’ by Aimé Césaire
Brent Hayes Edwards interviews Adam about Aimé Césaire's influential 'Discourse on Colonialism,' exploring its anti-colonial thought and négritude movement.
10 Sept 2024
‘The Souls of Black Folk’ by W.E.B. Du Bois
Brent Hayes Edwards and Adam Lively explore W.E.B. Du Bois's foundational work, 'The Souls of Black Folk,' revealing its enduring impact on Black literature and political thought.
10 Aug 2024
‘Hope against Hope’ by Nadezhda Mandelstam
Writer Pankaj Mishra and host Adam discuss Nadezhda Mandelstam's powerful memoir 'Hope Against Hope,' exploring life under Stalin and human resilience.
10 Jul 2024
‘The Golden Notebook’ by Doris Lessing
Writer Pankaj Mishra and critic Adam Shatz interview each other about Doris Lessing's novel 'The Golden Notebook,' exploring its themes of feminism and daily life.
10 Jun 2024
‘The Intimate Enemy’ by Ashis Nandy
Adam interviews Pankaj Mishra as they unpack Ashis Nandy's 'The Intimate Enemy,' exploring colonialism's psychological impact and alternative gender models.
10 May 2024
‘A House for Mr Biswas’ by V.S. Naipaul
Adam Shatz interviews author Pankaj Mishra about V.S. Naipaul's "A House for Mr Biswas," exploring its postcolonial themes and influence.
10 Apr 2024
‘The Human Condition’ by Hannah Arendt
Judith Butler and Adam Shatz interview each other about Hannah Arendt's concept of action as the highest human activity and its enduring relevance.
10 Mar 2024
‘Black Skin, White Masks’ by Frantz Fanon
In this interview, Judith Butler and Adam Shatz explore Frantz Fanon's seminal work 'Black Skin, White Masks,' revealing its enduring relevance to understanding antiblack racism and its psychological impact.
10 Feb 2024
'The Second Sex' by Simone de Beauvoir
Judith Butler joins Adam Shatz to discuss a landmark in feminist thought, Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex (1949). Dazzling in its scope, The Second Sex incorporates anthropology, psychology, historiography, mythology and biology to ask an ‘impossible’ question: what is a woman? Focusing on three key chapters, Adam and Judith navigate this dense and dizzying book, exploring the nuances of Beauvoir’s original French phrasing and drawing on Judith’s own experiences teaching and writing about the text. They discuss the book’s startling relevance as well as its stark limitations for contemporary feminism, Beauvoir’s refusal to call herself a philosopher, and the radical possibilities released by her claim that one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.
Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq
In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings
Read more in the LRB:
Joanna Biggs: The earth had need of me
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n08/joanna-biggs/the-earth-had-need-of-me
Toril Moi: The Adulteress Wife
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v32/n03/toril-moi/the-adulteress-wife
Judith Butler is Distinguished Professor in the Graduate School at the University of California, Berkeley, and Adam Shatz is the LRB's US editor and author of, most recently, The Rebel's Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon.
Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
10 Jan 2024
'Anti-Semite and Jew' by Jean-Paul Sartre
Judith Butler joins Adam Shatz for the first episode of Human Conditions to look at Jean-Paul Sartre’s 1946 book Anti-Semite and Jew, originally published in French as Réflexions Sur La Question Juive. Sartre’s ‘portraits’ of the ‘anti-Semite’ and the ‘Jew’, as he saw them, caused controversy at the time for directly confronting anti-Jewish bigotry in France and how Jewish people had been treated under the Vichy government and before the war.
Judith and Adam discuss Sartre’s attempt to develop a philosophical understanding of this kind of hatred and the apparent moral satisfaction it brings, and his contentious suggestion that not only does the antisemite owe his identity to the Jew, but that 'the Jew' is a creation of the antisemitic gaze. They also consider some of the criticisms levelled at the book, such as its focus on the bourgeois personality, and Sartre’s definition of Jews in entirely negative terms.
NOTE: This episode was recorded on 5 October 2023.
Non-subscribers will only hear an extract from the rest of the episodes in this series. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq
In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings
Read more in the LRB:
Adam Shatz: Sartre in Cairo
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v40/n22/adam-shatz/one-day-i-ll-tell-you-what-i-think
Jonathan Rée: Being and Nothingness
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v41/n08/jonathan-ree/peas-in-a-matchbox
Pierre Bourdieu: Sartre
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v02/n22/pierre-bourdieu/sartre
Julian Barnes: Sartre's Flaubert
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v04/n10/julian-barnes/double-bind
Judith Butler is Distinguished Professor in the Graduate School at the University of California, Berkeley, and Adam Shatz is the the LRB's US editor and author of, most recently, The Rebel's Clinic: The Revolutionary Lives of Frantz Fanon.
Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
1 Jan 2024
Introducing Human Conditions
In the second of three introductions to our full Close Readings programme for 2024, Adam Shatz presents his series, Human Conditions, in which he’ll be talking separately to three guests – Judith Butler, Pankaj Mishra and Brent Hayes Edwards – about some of the most revolutionary thought of the 20th century.
Judith, Pankaj and Brent will each discuss four texts over four episodes, as they uncover the inner life of the 20th century through works that have sought to find freedom in different ways and remake the world around them. They explore, among other things, the development of arguments against racism and colonialism, the experience of artistic expression in oppressive conditions and how language has been used in politically substantive ways.
Authors covered: Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Frantz Fanon, Hannah Arendt, V. S. Naipaul, Ashis Nandy, Doris Lessing, Nadezhda Mandelstam, W. E. B. Du Bois, Aimé Césaire, Amiri Baraka and Audre Lorde.
First episode released on 14 January 2024, then on the fourteenth of each month for the rest of the year.
To listen to the full series, subscribe:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq
In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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