Politics and Letters

About Politics and Letters

A podcast about politics and literature

Publisher

Chris Beausang

Category

arts

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

3 Jan 2023

Latest episode

17 Mar 2026

Latest episodes

17 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   17 Mar 2026

   Andrew Drummond: The Dreadful History and Judgement of God on Thomas Müntzer

   Andrew's book is available here (https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/2993-the-dreadful-history-and-judgement-of-god-on-thomas-muntzer) from Verso.

2. 

   30 Dec 2024

   The Russian Revolution IV: Civil War & Revolution in Germany

   Intro: Red Army is the Strongest - Alexandrov Red Army Choir Outro: You Fell Victim Further Reading Broué, Pierre. The German Revolution: 1917 - 1923. Haymarket Books, 2005. Carr, Edward Hallett. The Bolshevik Revolution 1917 - 1923. W.W. Norton & Company, 1985. Cohen, Stephen P. Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution: A Political Biography 1888 - 1938. Knopf, 1973. Deutscher, Isaac. The Prophet: The Life of Leon Trotsky, The One-Volume Edition. Verso, 2015. ——, Stalin: A Political Biography. Vintage Books, 1960. FitzPatrick, Sheila. The Russian Revolution. Oxford University Press, 2017. Kołakowski, Leszek. Main Currents of Marxism: The Founders, the Golden Age, the Breakdown. W.W. Norton & Company, 2005. Kotkin, Stephen. Stalin: Paradoxes of Power 1878 - 1928. Penguin, 2015. Rabinowitch, Alexander. The Bolsheviks in Power: The First Year of Soviet Rule in Petrograd. Indiana University Press, 2007. Serge, Victor. Memoirs of a Revolutionary. New York Review of Books, 2012. ——., Year One of the Russian Revolution. Haymarket Books, 2015. Smith, S.A.. Russia in Revolution: Empire in Crisis 1890 - 1928. Oxford University Press, 2018. Trotsky, Leon. Military Writings. Wellred Books, 2015.

3. 

   17 Dec 2024

   The Russian Revolution III: February to October

   Historian Dr. Sheila FitzPatrick and Professor Ronald Grigor Suny dissect the tumultuous months between February and October 1917, revealing the key events and figures that shaped the Russian Revolution.

4. 

   19 Aug 2024

   Michael G. Cronin, Impure Thoughts: Sexuality, Catholicism and Literature in Twentieth-Century Ireland, Revolutionary Bodies, Sexual / Liberation

   Interview with Michael G. Cronin, Assistant Professor of English in Maynooth University about his books: Impure Thoughts: Sexuality, Catholicism and Literature in Twentieth-Century Ireland (https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9780719086137/) Revolutionary Bodies: Homoeroticism and the Political Imagination in Irish Writing (https://manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526135421/) and Sexual / Liberation (https://www.corkuniversitypress.com/9781782055235/sexualliberation/)

5. 

   5 Mar 2024

   Chris Beausang, Tunnel of Toads

   Interview

6. 

   2 Feb 2024

   Liam McNulty, James Connolly: Socialist, Nationalist and Internationalist

   Conversation with Liam McNulty (https://twitter.com/nineteen67?lang=en) about his book James Connolly: Socialist, Nationalist and Internationalist, a critical biography of the great Irish socialist revolutionary, out from Merlin Press. Tunes: Frank Harte - James Connolly (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fKjDyaKc-E) Liam Weldon - James Connolly (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ti1CKgvMbXo)

7. 

   14 Nov 2023

   The Russian Revolution II: Germany, Poland and Russia in the Second International

   Further Reading Broué, Pierre. The German Revolution 1917 - 1923. Haymarket Books, 2005. Deutscher, Isaac. The Prophet: The Life of Leon Trotsky, The One-Volume Edition. Verso, 2015. ——, Stalin: A Political Biography. Vintage Books, 1960. FitzPatrick, Sheila. The Russian Revolution. Oxford University Press, 2008. International Socialist Conference at Zimmerwald, ‘Manifesto’. Marxists.org, 1915. https://www.marxists.org/history/international/social-democracy/zimmerwald/manifesto-1915.htm Kołakowski, Leszek. Main Currents of Marxism: The Founders, the Golden Age, the Breakdown. W.W. Norton & Company, 2005. Kotkin, Stephen. Stalin: Paradoxes of Power: 1878 - 1928. Penguin, 2015. Liedman, Sven-Eric. A World to Win: The Life and Works of Karl Marx. Verso, 2018. Lenin, Vladimir. Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution. Marxists.org, 2008. https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1905/tactics/index.htm#ep-s3 Luxemburg, Rosa, The Complete Works of Rosa Luxemburg Volume I: Economic Writings 1. Verso, 2014. ——, The Complete Works of Rosa Luxemburg Volume II: Economic Writings 2. Verso, 2016. ——. Reform or Revolution. Marxists.org, 1999. https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1900/reform-revolution/index.htm ——, ‘The Revolution in Russia’. Marxists.org, 2000. https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1905/02/08.htm Marx, Karl. Critique of the Gotha Programme. Nettl, J.P. Rosa Luxemburg. Verso, 2019. Rabinowitch, Alexander. Prelude to Revolution: The Petrograd Bolsheviks and the July 1917 Uprising. Indiana University Press, 1991. Salvadori, Massimo. Karl Kautsky and the Socialist Revolution 1880- 1939. Verso, 1990. Smith, S.A.. Russia in Revolution: Empire in Crisis 1890 - 1928. Oxford University Press, 2018. The Social Democratic Party of Germany, The Erfurt Programme. Marxists.org, 1891. https://www.marxists.org/history/international/social-democracy/1891/erfurt-program.htm Trotsky, Leon. 1905. Wellred Books, 2017. ——. History of the Russian Revolution. Penguin, 2017. ——, Trotsky on Lenin. WellRed Books, 2017. Wilson, Edmund. To The Finland Station. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012.

8. 

   30 Oct 2023

   Sam Slote: Annotations to James Joyce's Ulysses

   Interview with Sam Slote of Trinity College Dublin, co-author with Marc A. Mamigonian and John Turner of Annotations to James Joyce's Ulysses (https://global.oup.com/academic/product/annotations-to-james-joyces-ulysses-9780198864585?cc=us&lang=en&), available from Oxford University Press.

9. 

   23 Oct 2023

   The Russian Revolution I: Hegel, Marx and the First International

   First part of a 6 / 7 part lecture series on the Russian Revolution going from the Enlightenment to the Paris Commune. 07:27: My bad explanation of Kant ends. 14:20: My bad explanation of Hegel ends. I think I was sick of recording towards the end, you can hear it in my voice a bit. Further Reading Davis, Mike. Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World. Verso, 2018. Engels, Friedrich. Anti-Dühring. Wellred Books, 2017. ——. The Origin of Private Property, Family and the State. Penguin, 2010. Hibbert, Christopher. The French Revolution. Penguin, 1980. Hobsbawm, Eric. The Age of Revolution: Europe 1789 - 1848. Abacus, 2010. Kołakowski, Leszek. Main Currents of Marxism: The Founders, the Golden Age, the Breakdown. W.W. Norton & Company, 2005. Liedman, Sven-Eric. A World to Win: The Life and Works of Karl Marx. Verso, 2018. Mandel, Ernest. The Formation of the Economic Thought of Karl Marx 1843 to Capital. Verso, 2015. Marx, Karl. Capital: Volume I. Penguin, 1990. ——. Capital: Volume II. Penguin, 1991. ——. Capital: Volume III. Penguin, 1992. ——. Civil War in France: The Paris Commune. International Publishers, 2008. ——. Class Struggles in France 1848 - 1850. International Publishers, 1997. Wilson, Edmund. To The Finland Station. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012.

10. 

    23 Oct 2023

    The Russian Revolution: Introduction

    Strategic aims and outline of what I hope to achieve

11. 

    15 Oct 2023

    Thomas Pynchon's California Novels: The Crying of Lot 49, Vineland and Inherent Vice

    'Good American writers know their job has something to do with interrogating the spiritual poverty of the nation'. Tunes Bob Dylan's 115th Dream - Bob Dylan The Big Stick - Minutemen Hallelujah I'm a Bum - Barbara Dane Works Cited / Further Reading Curtis, Adam. All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace. BBC, 2011. Davis, Mike. City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles. Verso, 2018. ——. Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster. Verso, 2018. ——, Prisoners of the American Dream: Politics and Economy in the History of the U.S. Working Class. Verso, 2018. —— and Jon Weiner. Set the Night on Fire: L.A. in the Sixties. Verso, 2020. Debord, Guy. Society of the Spectacle. Marxists.org (http://marxists.org/), 1967. Elba, Max. Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals Turn to Lenin, Mao and Che. Verso, 2018. Harris, Malcolm. Palo Alto: A History of California, Capitalism, and the World. Little Brown, 2023. Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art. Clarendon Press, 1988. Jameson, Frederic. The Antinomies of Realism. Verso, 2013. Kinzer, Stephen. Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control. Holt, 2019. Mair, Peter. Ruling the Void: The Hollowing of Western Democracy. Verso, 2013. O’Neill, Tom. Chaos: The Truth Behind the Manson Murders. Penguin, 2019. Panitch, Leo and Gindin, Sam. The Making of Global Capitalism: The Political Economy of the American Empire. Verso, 2013. Pynchon, Thomas. Against the Day. —, Bleeding Edge. —, The Crying of Lot 49. —, Gravity’s Rainbow. —, Inherent Vice. —, Mason & Dixon. —, V. —, Vineland. Sheehan, Helena. Navigating the Zeitgeist: A Story of the Cold War, the New Left, Irish Republicanism, and International Communism. Monthly Review Press, 2019. Steinbeck, John. In Dubious Battle. Turner, Fred. From Counterculture to Cyberculture. University of Chicago Press, 2006. Underwood, Ted. Distant Horizons: Digital Evidence and Literary Change. University of Chicago Press, 2019. Watt, Ian. Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson and Fielding. University of California Press, 2001. Webb, Gary. Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras and the Crack Cocaine Explosion, Old Street Publishing, 2015.

12. 

    3 Sept 2023

    Tom Roseingrave: Frustrated Writer's Group Vol. 1

    A transmission previously broadcast on Dublin Digital Radio with Tom Roseingrave speaking on the publication of the Frustrated Writer's Group zine (Volume 1), with recorded contributions from the zine's contributors: Clíodhna Breathnach, Emily Featherman, Baxter King-Epping, Molly May O'Leary, Carina nic Giolla Phádraig, Katy Finnegan, Cian Booth and Sophia Malaika. Music from Kool A.D., Liam Ó Maonlaí, Ice Spice, Rosalía & Rauw Alejandro, MIKE and Moodyman.

13. 

    17 Jul 2023

    Joe Cleary: Capital and Culture in Modern Ireland

    A conversation with Joe Cleary (https://english.yale.edu/people/tenured-and-tenure-track-faculty-professors/joe-cleary) about his book Outrageous Fortune: Capital and Culture in Modern Ireland (https://fieldday.ie/shop/books/files/outrageous-fortune-capital-culture-modern-ireland/), a collection of essays engaging with Irish culture from the time of the literary revival, through the Free State and postwar periods to the Celtic Tiger. Joe Cleary is a professor of English in Yale University, where he teaches on modernism, Irish, postcolonial and world literatures. More recently he has published Modernism, Empire, World Literature (https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/modernism-empire-world-literature/5EC9E9CFD5BD89C146A5C0C369C1F52F) (2021) and The Irish Expatriate Novel in Late Capitalist Globalization (https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/irish-expatriate-novel-in-late-capitalist-globalization/irish-expatriate-novel-in-late-capitalist-globalization/1E3274EB5A6EB2B4EF04692352B7BA0D) (2021). The sound quality here is a bit shagged for the first ten minutes or so but it picks up after, my apologies.

14. 

    20 Jun 2023

    Odrán de Bhaldraithe: Neglect in the North of Ireland

    A conversation with Odrán de Bhaldraithe about his new book Neglect in the North of Ireland, which will be available to order here (https://www.ebb-magazine.com/books/p/neglect-in-the-north-of-ireland) on Thursday the 22nd of July. Odrán also has a Substack, which you can read here (https://ancamansoluis.substack.com).

15. 

    22 May 2023

    Sinéad Kennedy: Repeal the Eighth

    A conversation with Sinéad Kennedy (https://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/people/sinead-kennedy) about the history of Irish feminism, the campaign to repeal the eighth amendment from the Irish constitution, and the distinct ways in which the politics of liberation in Ireland have been inflected by Ireland's unique position within the world system. This episode was inspired to a large extent by Dr Camilla FitzSimons (https://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/people/camilla-fitzsimons)' book Repealed: Ireland's Unfinished Fight for Reproductive Rights, which is available here (https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745344270/repealed/) from Pluto Press. An episode of Pluto Press' Radicals in Conversation consisting of a conversation between Camilla, Sinéad and Ruth Coppinger about the campaign is available here (https://www.plutobooks.com/blog/podcast-repealed/⁠). Sinéad Kennedy is a senior university tutor in Maynooth University's Department of English. She has written and published widely on struggles for reproductive rights, Marxism, political theory and Irish literature. In 2013 she founded the Coalition to Repeal the Eighth Amendment with feminist activist and lecturer Ailbhe Smyth.

16. 

    14 Mar 2023

    Conor McCarthy: Edward Said

    An interview with Conor McCarthy about the life and work of the Palestinian literary critic and activist Edward Said. Conor McCarthy is a Senior Lecturer at Maynooth University. His books include The Cambridge Introduction to Edward Said, Modernisation, Crisis and Culture in Ireland 1969 - 1992. He has also edited The Revolutionary and Anti-Imperialist Writings of James Connolly 1893 - 1916. I blog at https://aonchiallach.github.io (https://aonchiallach.github.io)

17. 

    3 Jan 2023

    Fearghal Mac Bhloscaidh & Kerron Ó'Luain: The Irish Civil War

    An interview with the historians Fearghal Mac Bhloscaidh & Kerron Ó'Luain about the Irish Civil War, originally broadcast on Nervous State. Leabhar Ó'Luain: https://www.fourcourtspress.ie/books/2019/rathcoole-and-the-united-irish-rebellions/ Blag Mac Bloscaidh: https://blosc.wordpress.com Nervous State: https://listen.dublindigitalradio.com/resident/nervous-state

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14 ratings

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