The Ancient Greek Who Speaks to All History and Military Buffs

in History | January 18th, 2007

Open Source, a radio pro­gram host­ed by Christo­pher Lydon, recent­ly pulled off some­thing rather unusu­al. The broad­cast (iTunes — mp3) made it abun­dant­ly clear why an Ancient Greek text, Thucy­dides’ His­to­ry of the Pelo­pon­nesian War, remains fas­ci­nat­ing and high­ly rel­e­vant to mod­ern day read­ers. Writ­ten 2400+ years ago, Thucy­dides has some­thing impor­tant to offer his­to­ry and mil­i­tary buffs alike, and also those who want to delve into the com­pli­cat­ed human psy­che. For his­to­ri­ans, Thucy­dides’ work gives us the first mod­ern his­to­ry — the first his­tor­i­cal nar­ra­tive that looked to ren­der the past in an ana­lyt­i­cal, empir­i­cal and objec­tive way (a depar­ture from the more lit­er­ary, myth-based his­to­ries that came before it). For mil­i­tary thinkers, includ­ing stu­dents at West Point, the work holds such appeal because it recounts the epic, 27-year war (431–404 BC) between the two great­est Greek pow­ers — on the one side, Athens, a demo­c­ra­t­ic but increas­ing­ly impe­ri­al­ist pow­er, and, on the oth­er side, Spar­ta, a harsh oli­garchic pow­er that held no par­tic­u­lar impe­r­i­al aspi­ra­tions. Thucy­dides, an Athen­ian gen­er­al, gives you the blow-by-blow account of a land­mark his­tor­i­cal war. But he also gives you more. What par­tic­u­lar­ly engages read­ers, both past and present, are Thucy­dides’ philo­soph­i­cal insights into human nature — into how our pas­sions and fears, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing times of war, can counter-pro­duc­tive­ly under­mine our civil­i­ty and human­i­ty. This applies to lead­ers and cit­i­zens of Athens, who over­reached and even­tu­al­ly lost their war. Yet it also poten­tial­ly applies to mod­ern Amer­i­ca because it is Thucy­dides’ assump­tion that human nature remains fun­da­men­tal­ly the same across time and place. And, in that sense, there is a cau­tion­ary tale for all of us in this sem­i­nal Greek work.

Philosophy Talk and Intelligent Design

in Philosophy, Religion | December 26th, 2006

It’s not quite “Car Talk,” but it’s not ter­ri­bly far away. Phi­los­o­phy Talk, a week­ly pub­lic radio pro­gram pre­sent­ed by two Stan­ford phi­los­o­phy pro­fes­sors, offers a “down-to-earth and no-non­sense approach” to phi­los­o­phy that’s engag­ing, if not enter­tain­ing. The show, which can be streamed from the web site, tends to range wide­ly. In recent weeks, they’ve tak­en a look at neu­ro­science, Amer­i­can prag­ma­tism, quan­tum real­i­ty, war crimes, belief in God, and dream­ing, each time inter­view­ing a lead­ing thinker in the field and also post­ing help­ful, relat­ed infor­ma­tion on the The Phi­los­o­phy Talk blog.

To get a feel for how Ken Tay­lor and John Per­ry run their show, you may want to check out an episode that deals with intel­li­gent design, a the­o­ry that has emerged out of Amer­i­ca’s cul­ture wars to com­pete philo­soph­i­cal­ly or ide­o­log­i­cal­ly (depend­ing on how you see things) with evo­lu­tion. Here, the hosts are joined by Daniel Den­nett, the Direc­tor of the Cen­ter for Cog­ni­tive Stud­ies at Tufts Uni­ver­si­ty and the author of Dar­win’s Dan­ger­ous Idea. Togeth­er, they tack­le the essen­tial ques­tions: “Is there any rea­son to
think the cause or caus­es of order in the uni­verse bear an even remote anal­o­gy to human intel­li­gence? Even if they did, would that mean these intel­li­gent caus­es had the benev­o­lence and sense of jus­tice required of a Chris­t­ian God? Is this whole issue one of sci­ence, reli­gion, or phi­los­o­phy?” You can catch the episode on iTunes or stream it through Real Play­er. (Also check out the resources at the bot­tom of this page.)

Ideas & Culture Podcasts

in Podcasts | November 1st, 2006

Ideas/Issues

• Alan Watts Pod­cast iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Alan Watts helped inter­pret and pop­u­lar­ize Asian philosophies/religions for West­ern audi­ences. These pod­casts give you access to his archived talks/public lec­tures.
• Big Ideas iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Big Ideas offers lec­tures on a vari­ety of thought-pro­vok­ing top­ics which range across pol­i­tics, cul­ture, eco­nom­ics, art his­to­ry, sci­ence. The pro­gram is pro­duced by TVO, Canada’s largest edu­ca­tion­al broad­cast­er.
• Bill Moy­ers Jour­nal iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Vet­er­an jour­nal­ist Bill Moy­ers returns to PBS with Bill Moy­ers Jour­nal, a week­ly pro­gram that takes a deep look at a wide range of sub­jects, includ­ing pol­i­tics, arts and cul­ture, the media, the econ­o­my, and impor­tant issues fac­ing democ­ra­cy.
• Bri­an Lehrer Show iTunes Feed Web Site
  • A sol­id pub­lic radio broad/podcast with excel­lent inter­views with many impor­tant thinkers. Comes out WNYC in NYC.
• CBC: The Best of Ideas iTunes Feed Web Site
  • A Cana­di­an pro­gram that explores every­thing from cul­ture and the arts to sci­ence and tech­nol­o­gy.
• Com­mon Sense with Dan Car­lin iTunesFeedWeb Site
  • A blend of audio com­men­tary and news analy­sis by one of the lead­ing thinkers among today’s polit­i­cal­ly inde­pen­dent crowd. A fis­cal­ly con­ser­v­a­tive, social­ly lib­er­al approach to solv­ing prob­lems.
• Com­mon­wealth Club Radio Pro­gram iTunes Feed Web Site
  • The old­est radio pro­gram in the coun­try — dat­ing back to 1924 — this week­ly pro­gram fea­tures some of the most promi­nent speak­ers in the coun­try.
• Coun­cil on For­eign Rela­tions (Video) iTunes Feed Web Site
• Coun­cil on For­eign Rela­tions (Audio) iTunes Feed Web Site
  • You can get inside this elite body and hear some of what the world’s lead­ing politi­cians and polit­i­cal thinkers have to say.
• Deutsche Welle
  • Inspired Minds iTunes Feed Web Site
    • A col­lec­tion of por­traits on the world’s great thinkers.
• Enti­tled Opin­ions (About Life and Lit­er­a­ture) iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Host­ed by Robert Har­ri­son, a Stan­ford pro­fes­sor, this pod­cast is a week­ly lit­er­ary talk show that ranges broad­ly on issues relat­ed to lit­er­a­ture, ideas, and lived expe­ri­ence.
• FORA.tv Dai­ly FORA­cast
  • Audio: iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Video: iTunes Feed Web Site
    • In French, this pod­cast, led by the well known philoso­pher Alain Finkielkraut, fea­tures a pan­el dis­cus­sion on a dif­fer­ent cul­tur­al top­ic each week.France Cul­ture: Répliques iTunes Feed Web Site
• Get Illu­mi­nat­ed iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Boing Boing’s edi­tors inter­view cre­ative peo­ple with­in fringe cul­ture.
• Guardian Unlim­it­ed
  • Cul­ture on Guardian Unlim­it­ed iTunes Feed
  • Media on Guardian Unlim­it­ed iTunes Feed
• Forum with Michael Kras­ny iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Com­ing out of San Fran­cis­co, this pub­lic radio broad/podcast fea­tures excel­lent inter­views with major cul­tur­al fig­ures.
• In Our Time iTunes Feed Web Site
  • On this BBC pro­gram, the best minds explore the big issues that form the intel­lec­tu­al agen­da of our time.
• Leonard Lopate Show iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Com­ing out of WNYC in New York City, this pub­lic radio pod­cast offers dai­ly inter­views with a diverse col­lec­tion of great thinkers and talk­ers.
• Morn­ing Sto­ries iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Pre­sent­ed by WGBH in Boston, this pro­gram presents “unfor­get­table sto­ries by every­day peo­ple.”
• My His­to­ry Can Beat Up Your Pol­i­tics iTunesFeedWeb Site
  • Exact­ly what it sounds like; it puts cur­rent polit­i­cal events in a his­tor­i­cal per­spec­tive and ana­lyzes the his­to­ry to allow us to under­stand our pol­i­tics.
• New York Pub­lic Library iTunes Web Site
  • An exten­sive col­lec­tion of cul­tur­al media pro­duced by one of the world’s great libraries.
• NPR: Intel­li­gence Squared iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Intel­li­gence Squared U.S. brings Oxford-style debat­ing to Amer­i­ca– one motion, one mod­er­a­tor, three pan­elists for the motion and three against. Past top­ics have includ­ed reli­gion in Amer­i­ca, Hamas, and Hol­ly­wood.
• NPR: Fresh Air iTunes Feed Web Site
  • The NPR favorite with Ter­ry Gross.
• NPR: Kop­pel on the News iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Like Night­line, but bet­ter.
• NPR Shuf­fle iTunes Feed Web Site
  • A dai­ly sam­pling of dif­fer­ent NPR pro­gram­ming.
• NPR Talk of the Nation Opin­ion Page iTunes Web Site
• Open Source iTunes Feed Web Site
  • This dai­ly pro­gram, host­ed by Christo­pher Lydon, uses the inter­net and inter­ac­tive tech­nol­o­gy to talk about the world. One of our favorites.
• Par­tial­ly Exam­ined Life - iTunes — Feed — Web Site
  • A phi­los­o­phy pod­cast by some guys who were at one point set on doing phi­los­o­phy for a liv­ing but then thought bet­ter of it.
• PBS Pod­casts iTunes Feeds
  • This gen­er­al col­lec­tion gives you access to all PBS pod­casts.
• Phi­los­o­phy Bites iTunes Feed Web Site
  • A British pod­cast fea­tur­ing inter­views of top philoso­phers and that delves into some essen­tial philo­soph­i­cal ques­tions — what is the mean­ing of life? what is the nature of real­i­ty? what is evil?, etc.
• Philoso­phers’ Cafe Feed Web Site
  • Com­fort­able sur­round­ings for vibrant street lev­el dis­cus­sions on burn­ing issues of the day. No for­mal phi­los­o­phy train­ing required; real life expe­ri­ence desired. Come ear­ly, stay late. Pre­sent­ed by Simon Fras­er Uni­ver­si­ty.
• Pub­lic Radio Pod­cast Cat­a­logue Web Site
  • This web site con­tains links to feeds for over 900 pub­lic radio pro­grams avail­able via pod­cast.
• ResearchChan­nel iTunes — Web Site
  • Based out of the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton, the Research Chan­nel aggre­gates con­tent from many uni­ver­si­ties and research insti­tu­tions.
• Salon.com Con­ver­sa­tions iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Salon has a nice col­lec­tion of audio con­ver­sa­tions with fig­ures from the high­er ech­e­lons of the pop cul­ture world. David Lynch, Pedro Almod­ó­var, Amy Sedaris, the list goes on.
    • Also check out Salon’s Week­ly Down­load Pod­cast iTunes Feed Web Site
• SALT — Sem­i­nars About Long Term Think­ing iTunes Feed Web Site
  • An award win­ning month­ly speak­ing series host­ed by Stew­art Brand and orga­nized by the Long Now Foun­da­tion, which hopes to pro­vide a coun­ter­point to today’s “faster/cheaper” mind set and pro­mote “slower/better” think­ing. The pod­casts fea­tures many well known thinkers.
• Start the Week iTunes Feed Web Site
  • A BBC pro­duc­tion, Start The Week “sets the cul­tur­al agen­da for the week ahead, with high-pro­file guests dis­cussing the ideas behind their work in the fields of art, lit­er­a­ture, film, sci­ence, his­to­ry, soci­ety and pol­i­tics.”
• TED Talks Video iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Talks from an annu­al con­fer­ence that brings togeth­er major thinkers and doers.
• The Chron­i­cle of High­er Edu­ca­tion: Inter­views iTunes
• The Econ­o­mist iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Audio con­tent from one of the high­er qual­i­ty jour­nals out there.
• The New York Review of Books iTunes Feed Web Site
  • The pod­cast from the biweek­ly book review and jour­nal of intel­lec­tu­al cur­rents.
• The New York Times Pod­casts (Main) iTunes Web Site (see web site for indi­vid­ual feeds)
  • A fair­ly large col­lec­tion of dai­ly and week­ly pod­casts from the major US dai­ly.
• The New York Times — TimesTalks iTunes Feed
  • Con­ver­sa­tions with peo­ple of note as well as NYTimes jour­nal­ists and edi­tors.
• The New York­er: Com­ment (iTunes — Feed)
  • A week­ly read­ing of the magazine’s well-known “Com­ment” essay.
• The Sound of Young Amer­i­ca iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Inter­views with impor­tant fig­ures in the world of pop cul­ture, arts, lit­er­a­ture and com­e­dy. A high­ly-regard­ed pod­cast.
• This Amer­i­can Life iTunes Feed Web Site
  • First-per­son sto­ries and short fic­tion from the award-win­ning show host­ed by Ira Glass.
• To the Best of Our Knowl­edge iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Inter­views with nation­al­ly and inter­na­tion­al­ly-known guests with a pas­sion for ideas.
• Yes­ter­day is Gone iTunes Feed Web Site
  • “Yes­ter­day Is Gone” is Charles Binder’s per­son­al per­spec­tive about pol­i­tics, art, sci­ence, health, the past, the present, and what will prob­a­bly happen…now that Yes­ter­day Is Gone.

Books & Writ­ing

• Ama­zon Book Clips iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Lets you keep tabs on best­selling and up-and-com­ing authors.
• Barnes & Noble: Meet the Writ­ers iTunes Feed Web Site
  • A wide range of writ­ers dis­cuss their favorite books, influ­ences, and the rea­sons they write.
• C‑Span — After Words iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Inter­views with impor­tant authors of recent­ly pub­lished hard­back non-fic­tion.
• Gar­ri­son Keil­lor’s The Writer’s Almanac iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Each day Keil­lor reads a short poem or two and recounts what hap­pened on this day in his­to­ry.
• Gram­mar Girl’s Quick and Dirty Tips for Bet­ter Writ­ing iTunes Feed Web Site
  • I think the title says it all.
• Guardian Unlim­it­ed — Books iTunes Feed Web Site
• NPR Books iTunes Feed Web Site
  • A col­lec­tion of NPR author inter­views and book reviews.
• NPR Sto­ry of the Day iTunes Feed Web Site
• Poet­ry Foun­da­tion iTunes Feed Web Site
  • A dai­ly pod­cast fea­tur­ing high-qual­i­ty record­ings of poems, inter­views with poets, and poet­ry doc­u­men­taries.
• Ran­dom House Pod­cast iTunes Web Site
  • Lets lis­ten­ers check out excerpts from new book releas­es.
• Shake­speare-upon-iPod iTunes Feed Web Site
  • A series of 9 dis­cus­sions on, and read­ings from, Shake­speare.
• Simon Says iTunes Feed Web Site
  • A week­ly pod­cast on the books and audio books from Simon & Schus­ter.
• Slate Audio Book Club iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Crit­ics dis­cuss impor­tant and pop­u­lar books.
• The New York Times Book Review iTunes Feed Web Site
  • This fledg­ling pod­cast fea­tures the edi­tor of the NYT Book Review speak­ing about new­ly reviewed books.
• The New York­er: Fic­tion iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Each month, a New York­er fic­tion writer choos­es a sto­ry from the magazine’s archives for a New York­er Out Loud pod­cast.
• The Poet­ic Voice iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Houghton Mif­flin presents a month­ly poet­ry pod­cast.
• The Wash­ing­ton Post Book Review iTunes Feed Web Site
• The Writer’s Block iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Aired on KQED in San Fran­cis­co, this week­ly read­ing series fea­tur­ing writ­ers and per­form­ers of all stripes read­ing the lat­est short fic­tion, non-fic­tion, the­ater and poet­ry.
• Times Online Book Pod­casts iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Book pod­casts from anoth­er British dai­ly.
• Word for Word iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Pre­sent­ed by Amer­i­can Pub­lic Media, this pod­cast reviews the best of the nation’s recent speech­es.
• World Book Club iTunes Feed Web Site
  • World Book Club invites the globe’s great authors to dis­cuss their best known nov­el. This month­ly pro­gramme, pre­sent­ed by Har­ri­ett Gilbert, includes ques­tions by World Ser­vice lis­ten­ers.

Film

• BBC: Mark Ker­mod­e’s Film Reviews iTunes Feed Web Site
  • From the BBC, this pod­cast takes a no-punch­es-pulled look at UK cin­e­ma.

• NPR Movies iTunes Feed Web Site
  • NPR reports, reviews and inter­views on the movie front.
• Sun­dance Film Fes­ti­val Pod­casts iTunes Feed Web Site

• The Treat­ment iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Film crit­ic Elvis Mitchell turns the tables and gives the “treat­ment” to some of the most influ­en­tial and inno­v­a­tive forces cre­at­ing movies and pop­u­lar art and enter­tain­ment.

Muse­ums

• Art Insti­tute of Chica­go Muse­cast iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Expe­ri­ence the Art Insti­tute of Chicago’s muse­um through the words of artists, cura­tors, musi­cians, and edu­ca­tors.
• Met­ro­pol­i­tain Muse­um of Art iTunes Feed Web Site
  • A sol­id col­lec­tion of pod­casts from Amer­i­ca’s finest art muse­um. Includes read­ing by well known actors.
• MoMa iTunes Feed Web Site
  • The Muse­um of Mod­ern Art gives you pod­casts that let you hear artists and cura­tors dis­cuss mod­ern and con­tem­po­rary art.
• MoMA Think Mod­ern Lec­tures iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Offers record­ings of artists, crit­ics, schol­ars and writ­ers shar­ing their knowl­edge of the muse­um’s art col­lec­tions as well as their views on comtem­po­rary art issues.
• Nation­al Muse­ums Liv­er­pool Feed Web Site
• Philadel­phia Muse­um of Art iTunes Web Site
  • The muse­um offers mul­ti­ple pod­casts. They’re all cen­tral­ized in iTunes, or you can find the indi­vid­ual rss feeds on the muse­um web site.
• SFMOMA iTunes Site
  • A notably strong col­lec­tion of muse­um pod­casts.
• Smith­son­ian Muse­ums
  • Hir­sh­horn Muse­um & Sculp­ture Gar­den iTunes Feed Web Site
• The Nation­al Gallery Pod­cast iTunes Feed Web Site
  • Pod­casts from the Nation­al Gallery art muse­um in Lon­don.

Sundry

• Car Talk iTunes Feed Web Site
  • An NPR clas­sic.
• The New York­er Car­toons iTunes Feed.
  • Catch ani­mat­ed ver­sions of The New York­er’s famous car­toons.