Eclectic Intellection

Eric Adler is a Professor and the Chair of the Department of Classics at the University of Maryland. He recently wrote The Battle of the Classics: How a Nineteenth-Century Debate Can Save the Humanities Today (Oxford University Press, 2020).In this episode, he discusses the following books:1. Irving Babbitt, Literature and the American College: Essays in Defense of the Humanities (Houghton, Mifflin, 1908).2. Robert E. Proctor, Defining the Humanities: How Rediscovering a Tradition Can Improve our Schools (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998).3. Cicero, Pro Archia.

How did the humanities as a field of study develop and change since Antiquity? What should the chief goal of the humanities be? And what role do the classics play within the humanities? In this episode, I discuss these questions with Eric Adler, who is a Professor and the Chair of the Department of Classics at the University of Maryland. We will focus on his recent book The Battle of the Classics: How a Nineteenth-Century Debate Can Save the Humanities Today (Oxford University Press, 2020).

This episode is part of a new series of book-centered discussions. My goal in these episodes will be to learn more about my guests' favorite books. In this episode, Joseph Amato will discuss three books related to the history of walking.

In this episode, which is the first in a series of audio essays on walking, we discuss the history of walking. My guest is Joseph Amato, who is a historian and writer with a long list of publications. The main focus of our discussion will be his book On Foot: A Cultural History of Walking (New York University Press, 2004).

In this episode, we discuss the nature, function, and history of boredom. My guest is Peter Toohey, who is a Professor of Classics in the Department of Classics and Religion at the University of Calgary. His most recent books are Boredom: A Lively History (Yale University Press, 2011), Jealousy (Yale University Press, 2014), and Hold On: The Life, Science, and Art of Waiting (Oxford University Press, 2020). The main focus of our discussion will be his book Boredom: A Lively History.

In this episode, I discuss the limits of French republicanism with Jean Beaman, who is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. We will focus on her book Citizen Outsider: Children of North African Immigrants in France (University of California Press, 2017).

What is an intellectual life? Does the intellectual life have a specific purpose and goal, or is it open-ended? And what type of discipline is required for a fruitful intellectual life? In this episode, I discuss these questions with my guest Zena Hitz. We will focus on her recent book Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life, which was published by Princeton University Press.

In this episode, we discuss how historical narratives, ethnic categories, and a unique urban culture have shaped the distinct, much-admired, and at times nostalgically-evoked multiculturalism of the city of Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina. My guest is Fran Markowitz, who is a Professor Emerita in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and we will focus on her 2010 book Sarajevo: A Bosnian Kaleidoscope (University of Illinois Press).

In this episode, we discuss the intersection between religion, reason, sound, and ethics. More specifically, we explore these ideas through an analysis of Islamic sermons in Egypt. My guest is Charles Hirschkind, who is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. We will focus on his book The Ethical Soundscape: Cassette Sermons and Islamic Counterpublics (Columbia University Press, 2006).

In this episode, we discuss the problem of the present. What is the present? Where does it begin and end? And how does it structure our lives? My guest is Michael North, who is a Professor in the Department of English at UCLA. We will focus on his recent book What is the Present? (Princeton University Press, 2018).

In this episode, we discuss the legacy of Al-Andalus, Spanish colonialism in Morocco, and, more broadly, how ideas travel from one context to another. My guest is Eric Calderwood, who is an Associate Professor in the Program in Comparative and World Literature at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. We will focus on his recent book Colonial al-Andalus: Spain and the Making of Modern Moroccan Culture (Harvard University Press, 2018). More information about the book can be found here: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674980327.

In this episode, we discuss the Socratic question in Plato's Euthyphro. When Socrates asked "what is," what exactly was he asking? Did he try to capture some type of essence, or something else? My guest is David Ebrey, who is currently a Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter, which is similar to an Assistant Professor, at Humboldt University in Berlin. More specifically, we will focus on his 2017 article "Identity and Explanation in the Euthyphro", which was published in Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy (volume 52, pages 77-111). The article could be found here: https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780198805762.001.0001/oso-9780198805762-chapter-3.

This episode extends the previous discussion on historiography by focusing on two key questions in this field: What is usually left out of the writing of history? And is there a way to productively address the imbalance between the included and excluded elements in the writing of history? My guest is Ethan Kleinberg, who is the Class of 1958 Distinguished Professor and the Chair of the Department of History at Wesleyan University. This conversation is centered on his book Haunting History: For a Deconstructive Approach to the Past, which was published by Stanford University Press in 2017.

In this episode, we discuss the main argument in Plato's Euthyphro, as well as the problem of definition more broadly. My guest is John Brown, who is an Associate Professor Emeritus in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Maryland. We will focus on his seminal 1964 article "The Logic of the Euthyphro 10A-11B," The Philosophical Quarterly 14 (1964): 1-13. For more on Professor Brown's work, visit http://faculty.philosophy.umd.edu/jhbrown/

In this episode, we discuss the intersection between postmodernism and Orientalism. My guest is Ian Almond, who is a Professor of World Literature at Georgetown University in Qatar. We will focus on his 2007 book The New Orientalists: Postmodern Representations of Islam from Foucault to Baudrillard, which was published by I. B. Tauris.

In this episode, we discuss the intersection between Orientalist philology and Mediterranean history. My guest is Karla Mallette, who is a Professor of Italian and Mediterranean Studies and the Director of the Global Islamic Studies Center at the University of Michigan. On July 1, 2020, Professor Mallette will complete her tenure as the Director of the Global Islamic Studies Center and become the Chair of the Department of Middle East Studies at the University of Michigan. We will focus on her 2010 book European Modernity and the Arab Mediterranean: Toward a New Philology and a Counter-Orientalism, which was published by the University of Pennsylvania Press.

This episode deals with the intellectual, religious, and political movement known as Traditionalism. My guest is Mark Sedgwick, who is one of the most prominent scholars working on Traditionalism today. We will focus on his 2004 book Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century, which was published by Oxford University Press.

In this episode, we discuss the ethnological and cinematic work of the great French filmmaker Jean Rouch, whose long career in West Africa spanned from the early 1940s to 2004. My guest is Paul Stoller, who is himself a prominent anthropologist with an extensive experience in West Africa - and who had personally met Jean Rouch both in West Africa and in France. We focus on Dr. Stoller's 1992 book The Cinematic Griot: The Ethnography of Jean Rouch, which was published by the University of Chicago Press, and we talk more broadly about why Rouch remains so relevant today.

Is it possible to live a simple, good life in these difficult times? And what role does frugality play in simple living? In this conversation, I discuss frugality with Dr. Emrys Westacott. We focus on his 2016 book, The Wisdom of Frugality: Why Less is More - More or Less, which was published by Princeton University Press.

This discussion focuses on Eelco Runia's book Moved by the Past: Discontinuity and Historical Mutation, which was published in 2014 by Columbia University Press. We also talked about Tolstoy's War and Peace, and more broadly about the connections between history and the present.