Podcast appearances and mentions of Danielle Allen

On July 4th, 2026, the United States marks 250 years since the Declaration of Independence announced a new nation to the world. But how well do we actually know the document we're celebrating? Most of us can recite "We hold these truths to be self-evident," but how many of us have read all 1,337 words, and traced the argument the Declaration actually makes? Danielle Allen, the James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University and author of Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality, reveals how New Hampshire's desperate need for a functioning government set the Continental Congress on the path toward independence, why the Declaration was authored by many voices — not just Thomas Jefferson — and how a slow, careful reading of the document uncovers a powerful argument that freedom and equality are entwined. You cannot have one without the other. This is the essential starting point for Ben Franklin's World's Independence at 250 series. Danielle's Website | Book | Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/018 RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES

Join the girls as they explore the latest romance novel from Danielle Allen, Big Girl Blitz — delving into themes of love, ambition, and self-discovery. Our panel discusses the characters, plot twists, and the real-life parallels that make this book a must-read. Pull up & listen as they explore the rich characters, compelling relationships, and emotional depth of Danielle Allen's series, delving into themes of love, growth, and communication. This episode offers a detailed analysis of the series' key moments, character dynamics, and the series' overall impact.

Danielle Allen describes in her book, Our Declaration, the lengthy and difficult process behind the writing of the Declaration of Independence. But the process behind the Declaration mirrored the democracy it sought to create. In this commentary, we look at how democracy is a process and discuss how this process is lacking in our current politics.

Hey Well Read Baddies, we're back with another bonus episode! Today we're joined by author Danielle Allen discussing her upcoming release Big Girl Blitz, the final book of The Curve Series, available April 14th! We talk about her journey through the series, walking with faith and not fear, spoiler free thoughts on Big Girl Blitz, and what's next... ;) Tap in then leave us a voice note with your favorite moment from the episode. We want to hear what stood out to you! :) It's Book Vote time!! Cast your vote on what you'd like for us to read on the next season of the show here Learn more about Danielle and her work ⁠here⁠ and the last book she read here Be sure to tune in and check out the But What Do I Know podcast hosted by one of our pod sisters Chid! We can't wait to hear from you! :) Please send any questions or comments about this episode to shewellread@gmail.com OR leave us a Voice Note at https://www.speakpipe.com/shewellread‬ Follow SHE WELL READ! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shewellread/ TikTok: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMeDCLdTX/ Threads: https://www.threads.net/@shewellread Substack- https://substack.com/@shewellread Bookum- https://app.bookumapp.com/clubs/668ad565858c97a7faafafb1 Bookshop Storefront- https://bookshop.org/shop/shewellread More links including discount codes: https://bio.site/shewellread Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Danielle Allen's work straddles the line between past and present. On one hand, she's on the road this year talking about America's 250th anniversary in the context of her book on the Declaration of Independence. On the other hand, she's hard at work on Substack writing and talking about democracy reform (or renovation she calls it). She's also leading a coalition working to bring nonpartisan primary elections to Massachusetts through a ballot initiative this fall. Allen return to the show to discuss America's Semiquincentennial and what lessons today's democracy renovators can draw from the process that the Founders undertook to create the Declaration of Independence. We also discuss her work on Educating for American Democracy and Our Common Purpose, two national projects launched in 2021 that were the subject of her first appearance on the podcast. She talks about what's changed, for better and worse, in the past five years. Discussed in this episode: Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality - Allen's book on the Declaration of Independence The Renovator - Allen's Substack Coalition for a Healthy Democracy - group leading the Massachusetts nonpartisan primary ballot measure Educating for American Democracy Our Common Purpose Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

A Suite of Choices 3/30/26: David Roitman (Co-Lead, UU Democracy Action Team) & Prof Danielle Allen on “Reimagining Democracy,” abolishing partisan primaries, legislators' stipends, applying the Public Records Law to them & same day voter reg. Megan Zinn's Writers Block w/ Jessica Brilliant Keener: “Evening Begins the Day.” Easthampton Mayor Salem Derby: No Kings, Mount Tom, antisemitism in schools—the City's response & DESE's report, the budget, schools & an impending override? Rob Weir: “7 Swings at 7: Mickey Mantle—Legend and Victim of American Culture.”

A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists. Tonight on APEX Express Host Miko Lee speaks with Restorative Justice Educator and Author Tatiana Chaterji about her work on the power of tenderness. Tune in!   Tatiana Chaterji's website Show Transcript [00:00:00] Opening Music: Apex Express Asian Pacific expression. Community and cultural coverage, music and calendar, new visions and voices, coming to you with an Asian Pacific Islander point of view. It's time to get on board the Apex Express.   [00:00:44] Miko Lee: Good evening. I'm your host Miko Lee, and tonight we are speaking with Tatiana Chaterji about Restorative Justice. Restorative justice is a movement and a set of practices that stands as an alternative to our current punitive justice system. It focuses on people and repairing harm by engaging all the impacted folks working together to repair that harm. RJ is built off of ancient indigenous practices from cultures around the globe, including Native American, African, first Nation, Canadian, and many others. So join us with Tatiana Chaterji.    [00:01:23] Tati, who are your people and what legacy do you carry with you?    [00:01:28] Tatiana Chaterji: Thank you for the question, Miko. The first thing that comes to mind, my people are the people we're, we're, we're coming up on the cusp of a possible teacher strike, and I'm thinking about workers and the labor, movement and comrades in my life from doing, work as a classified school worker for about a decade.   [00:01:49] Then my people are also from my homelands. The two that I feel very close to me are in Finland, from my mom's side, and then in Bengal, both India, west Bengal, and Bangladesh. And my people are also those who are facing facing the worst moments of their life, either from causing harm or experiencing harm as a survivor of violence.   [00:02:11] I think about this a lot and I think about also the smaller conflicts and tensions and issues that bubble up all the time. So my people are those that are not afraid to make it better, you know, to make it right. And I carry, oh gosh, what legacy do I. I wanna say first kind of the legacy of the Oakland RJ movement that really nurtured me and the youth that I've encountered in schools and in detention on the streets in the community. [00:02:41] Youth who are young adults and becoming bigger, older adults and, and, and also elders. To me. So sort of that's whose legacy I carry in shaping the. Society that we all deserve.    [00:02:55] Miko Lee: Thank you for answering with such a rich, well thought out response that's very expansive and worldly. I appreciate that. Can you share what brought you to this work personally?   [00:03:07] Tatiana Chaterji: Sure. As a young activist involved in Insight Women of Color against Violence and aware of the work of Critical Resistance, and I had a pretty clear politics of abolition, but I didn't. Really think that it impacted me as personally as it did when I was in my early twenties and I suffered a brain injury from a vehicular assault, a hit and run that may have been gang affiliated or, a case of mistaken identity. My recovery is, is, is complicated. My journey through various kinds of disabilities has shaped me. But I think the way that I was treated by the police and by the justice quote unquote justice system, which I now call the criminal legal system, it because there was no justice.   [00:03:52] I sort of don't believe that justice is served in the ways that survivors need. yeah, I really, I got very close to the heart of what an RJ process can do and what RJ really is. I got introduced to Sonya Shah and the work of Suha bga and I was able to do a surrogate victim offender dialogue and then later to facilitate these processes where people are kind of meeting at the, at the hardest point of their lives and connecting across immense suffering and layers of systemic and interpersonal internalized oppression.   [00:04:26] Just so much stuff and what happens when you can cross over into a shared humanity and recognition. It's just, it's just so profound and and from that space of healing and, and, and compassion, I've been able to think about. Other ways that RJ can look and have sort of been an advan, what is it evangelical for it?   [00:04:51] You know, I think that because we don't see these options, I, I, because I knew people, I was able to connect in this way and I would just shout out David uim, who's the one who told me that even if I didn't know the person who harmed me, that this was possible. People so often give up, they're just like, well, I have to feel this way.   [00:05:10] I have to just deal with it. Swallow the injustice and the lack of recognition. Just sort of keep going. Grit your teeth. I think we don't have enough knowledge of what's possible and so we harden ourselves My name is Tatiana Chaterji. I'll be reading my flash essay split. Before I didn't know what a traumatic brain injury was. My tongue had not curled the letters TBI together shaping the sound of nightmare. I had not heard the clipping of staples from a scalp fused after it was split to release pressure.   [00:05:46] They said, removing the right cranial bone flap, not conceived of the skull as giving pressure, a living organism of its own, a piece of its stored in a freezer for months after being removed in the dead of night. Attempted murder, vehicular assault under a blanket of fog. This city, these hidden stars.   [00:06:07] Never concerned myself with science or medicine or the mechanics of survival, the filaments of me unbreaking encased as they were in a thick clay from where I stood young and forceful, standing or walking or sitting, because I wanted to willful, bold, joy, stubborn, had not needed to wait for the all clear discharge orders that released me to a world of indifference.   [00:06:33] Before I didn't know life without its sense. Its tastes that the olfactory nerve stretches behind the eyes, vulnerable to bruising or severing from an impact to the head that you won't know until you know an extended game of dice that ultimately rolled no permanent damage. You will smell again, but with loss.   [00:06:52] Unfamiliar associating Jasmine for coffee, revulsion to orange comfort and cinnamon. Before I had not been the target of any physical or lasting harm. Had not thought that victim or survivor would ever describe me. Had not organized a vigil for rape survivors as I did while unconscious dreaming, waking up to pelvic bruises, believing I was one of them.   [00:07:19] The brain injury bisected my life until I realized it was one in a string of paper cuts that stop hurting eventually, that there will be other moments that change me, that there are many ways to slice a life when I pull her to my chest. A sticky, slimy worm, six pounds, four ounces, eyes closed, mulling to find her place on my chest for the first time.   [00:07:44] My chin against the wet mess of hair. When he carries me over the threshold into our suite at the Wise Owl Hotel in South Colta, garlands of sweet Jasmine adorn my hair and my henna painted arms drip with gold. When the drama therapist asks the group to simulate the attack rushing towards me so I can do what I wished I had done, run away.   [00:08:11] It returns my power and I own what's mine Fingertips. Throbbing with the life they can grasp. Sirens through the dark machines. Beeping into a week of unconsciousness, awakening to wonder and madness. One toe at suicide's brink, recovering in this outpatient patient treatment program for depression and anxiety.   [00:08:31] All of it here. The breath and meat and sky. When I walked through the gates of San Quentin State Prison for the first time, shuttering at the cold, heavy clank permanence at my back. The man in front of me breathes nervously in his starched blue uniform, gently meeting my eyes to say, I've never met a real victim before.   [00:08:53] Thank you for coming. He is, of course, a crime victim, but also an offender, and there isn't room to be both in this place. I am here for the penultimate session of Victim Offender Education and Dialogue where the men have met for over a year now, each week to learn empathy and build rigorous self-reflection muscles to take accountability.   [00:09:18] They are ready to present their crime impact statements and to listen to a panel of survivors. None of us directly harmed or were harmed by each other. We are all surrogates. This then is the greatest innocence, the widest Gulf I've crossed before, sitting with men who have killed, who have touched this threshold, this fever wound of life and God and pain.   [00:09:44] My eyes were full of dew. I was blind to the logics of violence, the way the toxins seep under and you merge with its poison that you become dehumanized. Brutal. A mentality of war. The hurt echoing at a different pitch. Copper pebbles in an empty cave. Before I sat alone in confusion, untangling the threads of my trauma with what I knew from a peaceful life of privilege.   [00:10:12] In that first circle at San Quentin and every subsequent circle, I uncloak this ache, hear from men who explain the numbness, danger in every corner under the shadow of each day. I let them hold my story, share its load. Listen to theirs, my witness body lifting off bits of the weight they carry. I welcome insights previously unimaginable.   [00:10:39] Receive apologies I didn't know I needed. It's as if the lights switch on all at once, a brightness. The dialogue melts the isolation of my suffering. Its icy blanket of shame, allowing me to see what had been there all along, not monster. A human did this to me, broken alone, and suddenly I have permission to heal for 10 days.   [00:11:07] Baby birds remain in the nest. Their mother has built. I spent 10 days in a coma from within the protective circle. My family had drawn around me for the entirety of my two plus decades on earth. Infant wind, bone creature before flight 24 years collapsed to 10 days in the coma nest so I could bear free the weight of the universe.   [00:11:33] Soaring my mind at ease. A fresh page appears the dotted line of life's flashpoints waiting to blink on forward cuts and selves.   [00:11:46] Miko Lee: I just finished your new book. Wow.    [00:11:48] Tatiana Chaterji: Oh you did?   [00:11:48] Miko Lee: Yes I did.    [00:11:49] Tatiana Chaterji: Yay!   [00:11:50] Miko Lee: Yes I did. Everyday Restorative justice, moving from crisis Response to positive school culture. Big title, weighty title. It's so much, it's so rich, it's so beautiful. It has so many different elements for, um, for a classroom teacher, an educator, a community organizer. And it has not just like lesson plans, but amazing quotes and rubrics.   [00:12:15] Even rubrics. 'cause you could tell your classroom teacher with real experiences, which is like the land I live in. Stories and Spanish translations. So tell us how this amazing book, what, I mean you've been doing this work for years, but what inspired you to collect this into book form?    [00:12:33] Tatiana Chaterji: Oh, thank you Miko for reading it. That is the biggest gift ever. I want to shout out Heather Manchester Anita Vva and Evelyn Aquino. They wrote a book a few years ago on inter international Intergenerational Restorative Justice and really youth and adult partnership. And in that book, they featured the work that I had been doing at Fremont here in East Oakland.   [00:12:57] And I think that was the first time when I was like, wait, maybe we are really doing something special that deserves to be in a book. You know, like, what is this secret sauce? Or what is the, what is the combination? Things that we're doing that's really working that we want to share out with the world.   [00:13:14] And and so, yeah, so fast forward a little bit of time. There's, I, I've actually now left the district. I've had more time to reflect on what that time was and what it was we were doing. And I had this invitation with Teachers College Press to, uh, to put it forth and really make it legible for classroom teachers who might not have always felt like they were invited into this work for a variety of reasons.   [00:13:41] Miko Lee: Well, one, I think that's fascinating that it took somebody else writing about your work for you to say, Ooh, look at this. I think that's fascinating. Uh, more to that later, but I'm wondering I think many classroom teachers already do this whole, oh, let's come up with our rules for the classroom. It's like respect.   [00:13:58] I mean, it's a lot of the principles around restorative justice, but actually implementing a whole system feels. Overwhelming or like you were just saying, they don't have access to it, so how does this book give them access?    [00:14:14] Tatiana Chaterji: Uh, well, and I, I wanna clarify from the top that I'm actually, I am, I have served in the role of a classroom teacher, but that's not my training or background. And that I've, I've actually seen this schism or this kind of divisiveness between people who are in youth organizing, where I've, that's my background. Youth organ organizing, youth leadership development, sort of student and youth services. Vis-a-vis classroom educators. And I was straddling both of these roles as a classified employee doing restorative justice alongside case managers, the school security officers who are now called culture keepers in Oakland Unified, and and administrators as well.   [00:14:56] And I was partnering with teachers to figure out classroom systems. I ended up co-teaching and then solo teaching a class within the Mandela academy for Law and Public Service. That continued until when that school, when that mini school closed down. But I learned so much from classroom teachers. The educators that I was working with are amazing and they are the original. RJ people, I would say, but they, they are not positioned that way and they aren't often recognized or given the time and space to do circle and to do that culture building in their classrooms because they have any number of deliverables and test you know, requirements that they are responsible for.   [00:15:37] And so what I really saw was a kind of a sidelining of their work into the teaching and then the culture work happening in other pockets and primarily held by people who are not in front of the kids day after day dealing with. Management and communication and all the things that happen when you're bell to bell responsible for so many different combinations of kids and communicating with their parents and making sure everything gets synced up. So I think I really wanted to honor their labor and and open the door. And, and, and I'm sure others have done it as well, but I just felt it wasn't open enough. It wasn't a, a sort of a strong enough like, here, you already do this. Why? What if you could take it a step further or here are some things that are legible for the systems and the, the tasks that you are responsible for, that you have to be responsible for. Let me create it in your, in your language. And really with great humility from my own position is, has not having the same training.    [00:16:41] Miko Lee: Thank you for pointing that out. And those titles of, you know, the classroom educator, the community organizers, the youth development person, people often like separate them, but really it's about the creating the best culture for the students is what we're talking about.   [00:16:56] Tatiana Chaterji: Yeah. We should be on the same page.    [00:16:58] Miko Lee: Yeah.    [00:16:58] Tatiana Chaterji: And I think very often we are pit against each other and there's sort of, you know, being in this violent, extractive society that that's sort of what happens. But it shouldn't happen, in fact. Right. And we should be more hand in hand working together when there's been this smooth handoff between different roles on a campus. That's when it's just the best. And I want to, I hope to see that more.    [00:17:19] Miko Lee: Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about the story behind the, forward to the book? You write in a dedication to a young woman, and can you share a little bit about that story?    [00:17:30] Tatiana Chaterji: Oh gosh. Shamara Young her memory lives within me and with so many people in the Fremont community in Oakland. She was a student leader who was in the very first iteration of this RJ class, this restorative justice class that I taught for ninth graders, which really is the inspiration for this book. And she was killed shortly after we had just come back from distance learning from the pandemic, and it really shocked our, our entire community, an incident of road rage, and just the excess of the excess availability of weapons, you know, and, and firearms.   [00:18:07] So just wanted to honor her legacy, honor honor other students and young people who've been stolen from us, from violence here at home, and also in any number of imperial projects that, that. US government is responsible for just really seeing the interconnection between people's struggle and the loss of life is tragic all the time. And the loss of a student is a particular pain that I just, I wanted to name because it is, it is so tender and other educators, youth organizers, parents, people who've known young ones to, to die in that way. It's just something, a wound that stays and definitely motivates me to, to do this work.   [00:18:49] My name is Tatiana Chaterji. I'll be reading my Vielle, a poem called Losing Shamara. When he tells me she's gone, the air leaves my lungs losing shamara. The adults are loud in their grief. Students' eyes down to forget their own stolen ones. Circles the forced ceremony of blood on false tongues, homage to her memory, her story without relief.   [00:19:15] When he tells me she's gone, the air leaves my lungs. There's enough rage in the streets, enough guns, too many per person drowning dreams. All the beef students' eyes down to forget their own stolen ones. We fend for ourselves, feeding off crumbs, unmet needs of volcano. The lava, a sharp reef. When he tells me she's gone, the air leaves my lungs. [00:19:41] Healing hearts. Now the school spins as she hums her voice and my mind a faint shaking leaf when he tells me she's gone, the air leaves my lungs losing shamara. The adults are loud in their grief.   [00:19:57] Miko Lee: Well, thank you so much for grounding the book in that story, because I think there's something about talking about doing that work, but keeping in mind a real person and the impacts of our violent society and what's going on, but also how we keep moving on. So I, and    [00:20:13] Tatiana Chaterji: to say that, you know, Shaara really embraced this. She already, like so many of us and so many young people, she knew how to communicate through difficult situations, through drama and the gossip and what people are posting. And I saw that clarity and that maturity in her and wanted to just instill this book with that wisdom that, that young people often know how, already how to navigate these complex and oppressive systems. And that if we can offer a spotlight to them or something that's substantive and really honors that intelligence, they're, we, we could learn a lot.   [00:20:49] Miko Lee: Speaking of drama and learning a lot. I know that you have a background in theater and theater of the oppressed, and I'm wondering how you bring that work into your RJ work.   [00:21:00] Tatiana Chaterji: Oh, well that's a big passion of mine. I have not done it as much in the classroom space as I might have liked. But it's it when, when there is the invitation or the, the, the container to really go deep and create stories. Using theatrical forms and, and our bodies, this, this magic of image theater, it can be so powerful.   [00:21:22] The bulk of my work in that area has been inside of prison and doing programming in that highly violent system where there is generative, juicy, beautiful art to be made. And I just shout out all of the incarcerated artists that I've worked with who helped to shape those spaces and do performance in the prison where, where there was kind of like a witnessing and a participation across the audience and the performers who are on stage. That is that that gives me a lot of just light and hope and yeah. Good stuff.    [00:22:02] Miko Lee: I wonder if you could share a bit for folks that are not as familiar with rj uh, restorative justice work, and particularly at school sites, if you could share about the carpet of community building, what is that all about?   [00:22:15] Tatiana Chaterji: Oh yeah. Well, in the book I talk about the standard model of three tiers of restorative justice using kind of a triangle diagram where the, the bottom third, it's not even quite a third, it's the biggest chunk of the triangle, but that bottom layer is tier one. And this is not just in restorative justice, a lot of people will be familiar with this, where tier one is kind of universal. It's supposed to be for everybody. It is supposed to work for everyone, kind of the way that you shape the culture and the conditions of a learning environment.   [00:22:48] Tier two is when things go wrong or rather. People might need more support, more individualized attention in an RJ context, that's often if there's conflict or a pattern of, uh, behavior that is harmful. And then tier three is at the very top where it's the fewest people. But the idea that maybe somebody needs to be removed in a typical school that would be through.   [00:23:15] Expulsion or suspension or even juvenile detention and that they are in a restorative justice framework, they are welcomed back with intention and clarity on what that means. Doing something that's called a cosa, a circle of support and accountability that looks at the ways that a young person can succeed and holds them to account with a lot of love and care.   [00:23:39] So that triangle is great. Kind of, but it also could be Reconceptualized as a carpet of just interconnecting reasons for meeting in Circle. And I really wanna credit one of my mentors and friends, Kamoa Johnson, who helped me to think about this as a sort of, there's so many reasons to get, come together and circle that none of them should be prioritized more than the other. Or rather that every single thing should be grounded in the strength of the community and building relationships. So if I'm meeting with someone because they did something. Wrong, quote unquote, you know, that's also an opportunity for relationship. And there should be, uh, a piece of us getting to know each other as human.   [00:24:23] That is part of that as well. And yeah, so I think like just thinking about the carpet you can think about the different kinds of circles that people practice. That is all happening as community. That community building has to happen first and alongside all of these other interventions. So it's almost like the two top layers of the triangle would actually be situated in the bottom triangle or the bottom little chunk. And that bottom chunk would actually be a circle    [00:24:50] Miko Lee: or just reconfiguring the whole idea of a triangle.   [00:24:54] Tatiana Chaterji: Right, exactly. Yeah.    [00:24:55] Miko Lee: Yeah. So that we are all on one level space working in collective, uh, communication.    [00:25:02] Tatiana Chaterji: Yeah, and I think I might've explained it in sort of a confusing way. You'd have to really look at the book to see the, the reconceptualization, but I wanna emphasize that The reason that this framework and this redesign is so crucial is because people jump into rj, they jump into a circle and they don't do the groundwork to prepare everyone, including themselves to be there. But in a school environment, there's any number of toxic elements that students are absorbing, that teachers are absorbing, that we're all kind of just surviving with, you know, we're hungry, we're tired, we're overstimulated, the lights are too bright. We didn't get enough sleep. There's distractions on our cell phones.   [00:25:44] There's so many reasons that prevent us from sitting with each other and listening and being willing to learn from what another person might say or what their experience might be. And so if we can just go. Backwards and start with authentic connection and community building and skilling people up on how to listen. Then we'll be more successful. Any number of people who have tried to do a circle and it fails, and I count myself in that group as well. It's not. All your fault. In fact, it might not be your fault at all. There's so many reasons why a circle will flop, and I think the assumption that I make is that people are not going to bear their souls to me or be vulnerable to me right off the bat.   [00:26:32] And maybe they won't really ever. But that there are steps that can be taken to soften the hostility, the inherent hostility or harshness that is in our society, and to kind of slowly work towards a, just a, like a, a warmth. A warmth where people feel like it's not dangerous to talk about the icky stuff and the uncomfortable stuff, and that we have to do it very slowly and in a container where students and really anyone can relearn the part of ourselves that we have to strip away when we grow up.   [00:27:11] Miko Lee: So I feel like you're talking about multiple things. One is creating a safe environment for the young people to be able to speak what's on their heart, what's on their mind, and, and to recognize that everybody's coming from such a different space. Even in one school. Even in one classroom. It reminds me of that theater game the moment before. Like you never know what happened to that person the moment before they came to that circle.    [00:27:34] Tatiana Chaterji: Yeah.    [00:27:34] Miko Lee: And so it's just to be very conscious of that, that, uh. All of the environment that they're coming from.    [00:27:41] Tatiana Chaterji: Yeah. Conscious of it and accepting of it, but also not accepting that that's it. Like if someone is showing up and they're on their phone or they're kind of listening in a superficial way, they give a a cheap answer to a question that that's not all they're capable of. And I think we know that and educators would know that, but they might not have the tools to allow the student to go deeper or to, or even the time in their day in the semester to allow that growth to happen. And so I spotlight this experiment that we did at Fremont, which was 12 weeks long, and it rotated three times.   [00:28:18] It was an intro to the Media Academy, introduction to that. Architecture academy, and then it was a restorative justice class. And in those 12 weeks from the start to the finish, I noticed an incredible change in the student's ability to connect with each other, to feel empowered, to take, uh, sort of shape what they understand and shape what they care about and what they might wanna advocate for. And it was an intensive laboratory. I was super strict about phones. You know, I was, it was like, that was the place where you had to listen, learn how to listen, which was, in fact, the, the, my biggest, deliverable for them was that they should know how to listen and that they, of course, knew how, but this was a way to practice it further.   [00:29:02] Miko Lee: Can you name a few other things in that 12 week session that were able to foment this, uh, community?    [00:29:10] Tatiana Chaterji: Yeah, I think because it was a non-academic space, I was really able to prioritize how people are listening and how they are, uh, speaking or communicating. So everybody has a different comfort level with speaking out loud. And being in circle can feel extremely intimidating if you're not someone who likes to talk in front of people or likes to have the spotlight on you. So through the course of the class, there were, there were smaller activities to practice, people's public speaking, and even reflecting and then articulating what it is that you wanna say and practicing what does it mean to divulge something but not too much that you feel exposed.   [00:29:50] That skill, I think, is something that adults often take for granted, that we know how to evaluate a situation and shape our story correctly. And not all adults either, but it's something that for young people that is some that, that they can grow into that. Understand what they might wanna share that would be meaningful without making them feel too naked in front of their peers. So it's sort of like all of these dimensions of what are the pressures that they're feeling among this group of people? What feels comfortable to share? And when we got, when we broke into the more vulnerable and tender territory, it was pretty incredible to see and, and witness the shift in energy and how letting people's guards down could happen, like in a responsible way. I, in no way, am advocating for having students and encouraging students to open up about their trauma and then be let loose into the, to the world. You know, there are so many dangerous things that, that people are dealing with and having to say,    [00:30:53] Miko Lee: especially our social media world.    [00:30:56] Tatiana Chaterji: Right, absolutely. That's a whole other terrain. But to say that there is perhaps more possible than what we accept. So, so we kind of, I think we give up on like, well, you know, people are gonna shut down. They already are shut down and they're guarded, and boom, that's it. Let's just roll with it. Let me give them as many worksheets as possible, but I'm not gonna ask them to talk out loud because that's too much and    [00:31:23] Miko Lee: watch a bunch of movies.    [00:31:25] Tatiana Chaterji: Yeah. Well, I mean, teachers would tell me that they were so grateful that this space was being held because of what I think they understood as like a, a naturally therapeutic environment. And then of course, it's crazy because it wasn't always great. Sometimes it, you know, it didn't, I couldn't contain the space as well as I wanted to, but then students would say that I was the only teacher that would. Require them to speak out loud. Um, and so, and I didn't do    [00:31:48] Miko Lee: what of the whole day? That was the only class?   [00:31:51] Tatiana Chaterji: Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty easy for some of them, you know, some of them and not all of them, but like, it's, it's remarkable to, to understand that education can happen that way. And increasingly with remote learning and with everything being sort of through this technological interface, it is possible to pretty much not communicate out loud. So then what does that mean? We are losing so much of what we're capable of.    [00:32:13] Miko Lee: Yeah. It's not giving voice to students at all. Literally.    [00:32:16] Tatiana Chaterji: Well, right. Yeah. Yeah.    [00:32:19] Miko Lee: I mean, you make me think of a couple things. One, when you talk about the public speaking, clearly that's where your theater training comes in, not just naturally to do the public speaking, but then I also, when you're talking about consent and what you're sharing and how much you're sharing of yourself, 'cause that can be very vulnerable for young folks, especially folks that are survivors. And I'm thinking about Dr. Danielle Allen from Harvard and her work around the youth participatory politics. Are you familiar with her stuff?    [00:32:47] Tatiana Chaterji: No,    [00:32:47] Miko Lee: she's amazing she, she has this whole theory about how youth should share, and one of her components is sharing, um, digitally what they wanna share about who they are in the world. But I was just thinking about these as you're speaking about how you're getting them to talk about who they are. And I'm wondering if you could share a little bit more about youth leadership and how that's part of the development of the program, how important that is.    [00:33:15] Tatiana Chaterji: Absolutely. Um, I have a quote from one of my favorite RJ comrades to BD Gibson where he says that anything a young person can do, they should do that. We should hand it over, you know allow for more scaffolded, kind of shared responsibility. When I think about from the beginning of a school year to the end, that, that there's kind of a, the teacher is, and the, or the youth worker, whoever's holding the space, is doing a lot of the work to, to teach the skills, to transfer, the skills, to mentor and empower or skill up the young people. And that through the course of the year, by the end of it, that the young people are taking it on, shaping it, and they're doing so. In collaboration with the adults. And that it is not so much just youth adult partnership, but that there's a, a sense of intergenerational ness even among young people.   [00:34:08] There might be two people on the same grade level, one of whom has been in a youth leadership program and already kind of feels confident about doing any number of things. And I and a and their peer who could learn from that. Or an upper class person and a younger class person or a recent graduate. Many of the teachers and staff at Fremont were actually alumni of the school, which was really powerful for students to see someone who had gone through those same hallways. I think that's all a, a, a piece of it.   [00:34:38] The other thing about youth leadership is that the model of restorative justice in schools that I'm grounded in and that I would say many of my people in Oakland are grounded in is peer leadership. So when students are leading circles, and not just leading circles, but also kind of having their ears to the ground and listening to what students are worried about, if there are social and political phenomena that are affecting students and staff, how, how can they shape the questions or the activities that might need to happen? And, um,    [00:35:12] Miko Lee: for sure they know what's happening way more than any teacher does.    [00:35:16] Tatiana Chaterji: Right. I mean, often or in a different way.    [00:35:18] Miko Lee: Mm-hmm.    [00:35:18] Tatiana Chaterji: And so to be able to invite their voice in a, in a, in a meaningful container that isn't tokenizing it, that isn't sort of celebrating them just for being young or oppressed. I mean, I see that a lot in, in, in the work of youth leadership even. But to sort of meaningfully integrate them, which also requires training them in various, skills. And that partnership and that kind of coming together and doing things as a community can be transformative for everyone involved. I mean, for the staff that I've worked with, not just at Fremont, but at other schools when I've had students that are leading a training in circle keeping, for example, that can be so magnificent because the teacher gets to literally learn from their students, which I think is a dream that many people already are already want to do.   [00:36:06] Miko Lee: Absolutely. I think that's true.   [00:36:08] Ayame Keane-Lee: We're gonna take a quick break from the interview and listen to Slow Fade by MILCK.   MUSIC   [00:40:26] That was Slow Fade by MILCK.   [00:40:29] Miko Lee: I wanna pull a little bit bigger and talk a little bit more about restorative justice for just a moment. You write in your book about this need for a cultural shift, a paradigm shift because we are living in a capitalistic, uh, you know punishment based world in that we have this whole prison industrial complex and in, in fact the education to prison industrial complex. So can you talk about the different questions that are asked that, that restorative justice uses versus re, re versus like.    [00:41:01] Tatiana Chaterji: retributive.    [00:41:02] Miko Lee: Yes. Cannot say that word. So talk a little bit about the difference in our current system, which is this punishment base versus a restorative justice based. What kind of questions are different?    [00:41:13] Tatiana Chaterji: Yeah, definitely. Uh, uh, and, and to say that it's not just oppressive, capitalistic, it's also very transactional, that our relationships are not human. They're about just what people can get from them. And I'm seeing that just a lot. Um, but Howard Zer, I think is one of the people that I would credit with these contrasting questions in our current system, in, in sort of punitive and criminal or carceral spaces, the questions are who what law or rule was broken?   [00:41:40] Who broke it? You know, who's at fault? And then what should be the consequence? And often consequence means punishment or retribution. It means a payback because you broke a law. And in that system, the law or the institutions, right, is. Is is more important than the person and the victim or survivor is invisible.   [00:42:02] They are not even really of concern. And our, that's how our criminal legal system works. You don't really often have to consult a victim or a survivor around what they want to have happened because they literally don't matter. Their, their voice is taken away. It's the state of California versus the person who is accused of a crime vis-a-vis the person who's hurt or their mother, their community versus someone who, who has caused harm in a restorative approach.   [00:42:30] We ask. What the heck just happened? What, what's going on? You know who was harmed? Who else was affected? And what needs to happen to make things right? And that what needs to happen to make things right? Also includes who needs to do what. So it's going into the impact, the needs that arise from that impact, and then the obligations that. flow from there. So it's a really sort of, it's a more holistic and humanizing approach to situations that are complex. There's always a backstory, and that backstory isn't to justify the harm, it's to give the context.   [00:43:14] It's to understand how things happen. I have, I'm now a mom, I have two kids. If something's going on at school or if my child is blamed for something, I have to ask what prompted this kid to do the thing? I mean, when you're a parent, you really feel it quite closely, but it's there all the time. There's sort of, there's cycles that get played out in any number of of problems that we attend to.   [00:43:38] Miko Lee: Thank you for breaking that down so clearly. We're living in this time right now where the Epstein files are just being released and every day there's a different story in the news. And I'm just wondering for folks right now that may be triggered every time they're listening or reading or what, taking in the news, what are some RJ methods for coping with that?   [00:44:01] Tatiana Chaterji: My gosh, I'm one of these people that is triggered constantly and I just wanna give a shout out to all the survivors of, um, of child sexual exploitation, commercial sexual exploitation, and um, uh, sexual violence, all the, the, um, the predatory stuff that happens on the streets in my community and definitely at the schools where I've been. It is extremely. Unjust on the local level, and we're seeing it at these, at the scale, right? Of power. So blatant,    [00:44:34] Miko Lee: so big, so international, so wild.    [00:44:39] Tatiana Chaterji: Yeah. So in terms of how can RJ help, I mean, I would say that there is such a lack of any kind of accountability right now for the harm doers for people who have caused harm. There's no, there's not, there's not, there's not punishment, right? If you wanna look at retributive justice, there's not sort of    [00:44:57] Miko Lee: no accountability.    [00:44:58] Tatiana Chaterji: There's no accountability, but there's no compassionate encounter with with people who have done harm either. I mean, the framework I guess I would offer is the social relationship window. Um, ol and waktel, Ted Wachtel, various people have reenvisioned it, Dorothy Ving, and if you get the book, you can see all that. So that legacy, but that we sort of, we hold people who are causing harm. We hold them with love, and we also hold them with with a clear structure and boundary around what's acceptable.   [00:45:28] And so we're not sliding into a permissive zone where where we just let it go and enable the behavior to happen. And we're also not trying to dehumanize people who have caused harm and only see them as as monsters. I, I don't know, miko when it comes to people with such. Positional power, privilege, and just impunity. I, I don't know if I would apply that to the, to the perpetrators, right, to the people who, who are responsible for such harm right now. Like, that's not the conversation that I'm interested in having. I think, yeah, I, I don't know. Maybe I'm messing up this question.    [00:46:02] Miko Lee: No, you're not. I's so complicated because as an abolitionist, you know, I don't want these. I don't want people to be incarcerated necessarily, but these are some hideous, awful people that are like, so how do, how do you like wrestle with that?    [00:46:18] Tatiana Chaterji: I think it's like the, there's individuals right, who cause harm, but I think the main thing is that there are systems that allowed this harm and are allowing and have continued this harm to happen. I,  [00:46:29] Miko Lee: and it's perpetrated. It's still going on.    [00:46:30] Tatiana Chaterji: Right? Right. So I think like it's really about dismantling these systems and, and shining the light on what is there that we don't always see because we are caught up in the interpersonal, right. And so much of conversations about oppression will get into interpersonal because that's what we see.   [00:46:46] Miko Lee: Mm-hmm.    [00:46:46] Tatiana Chaterji: So students and community members will feel that someone is racist because someone has made a comment or this, that and the other. They're not seeing the kind of racial capitalism, the structure of poverty and what's baked into our laws that are behind it. So I think what circle and what restorative justice spaces can do is for me as someone who resists.   [00:47:08] Racial capitalism and resists structural inequality and the existence of poverty and racialized poverty in the way that it is, that it is. I think it is a space for dreaming together, for, for identifying shared struggle. What are the common things that we're dealing with? A circle is really good because it breaks people out of isolation that they think they're grappling with a thing on their own, and actually it is shared by other people and perhaps everyone. [00:47:38] So then from that place of shared struggle, what do we dream that, could be different? And how do we, organize together? I see the healing component of storytelling and of channeling grief and rage as connected to action and, and strategy. So that's primarily what I would say. Thank you for that question, for this timeliness. Yeah.   [00:48:02] Miko Lee: I'm wondering what you want folks to understand after reading your book. What do you want them to walk away with?    [00:48:09] Tatiana Chaterji: I think I want people to maybe f feel a, a little bit more confident that they could to the heart of pain with students and with others in your life, that there are frameworks and structures or ideas that can really. Hold you and support you in navigating that hard stuff or that even to study it. Maybe I want people to be curious about how do people create justice? What is, what is healing based justice look like? What's possible? Let's study it together because it takes a lot of work. It's not apparent. Our media and Hollywood, they glamorize, you know, there's propaganda.   [00:48:58] There's just like a glamorous portrayal of vengeance and that humanity, we can have vengeance, but we can also have other things. And those things might be the ones that we, the, the healing based justice systems is what we want when it's representing our best selves and what could help us and future generations.   [00:49:17] So to walk away with a little bit of hope. To not throw away RJ because of your past experiences where it sucked. RJ often sucks because of how, because of any number of factors and that it doesn't, don't give up. Don't give up. It can be better. And it, and, and there's some things that we can all learn, including myself and any of my own mistakes, that there's perhaps, it's still worth fighting for and it's still worth trying, and that we can do it slowly with care, with intention, and to give that.   [00:49:51] Allowance that people aren't going to be always ready, and it's not their fault. They, that doesn't make them less good or smart or wise or politically, you know, savvy. It's that there's so much that we are working against all the time to, and, and our survival mechanisms are very toxic. We don't really treat each other well, and that's on purpose. In fact, we tear each other down and that's, how, systems are allowed to continue to exploit us. So, yeah, that's, it's kind of a mouthful, but maybe a little bit of that, like a little bit of inspiration to try things on.   [00:50:26] Miko Lee: Okay, I wanna go back. Can you give a breakdown of what copaganda is?    [00:50:32] Tatiana Chaterji: Oh, I mean, copaganda is what we all, I mean, I consume it certainly. It's like the, it's Paw patrol, it's my kids getting exposed to superhero dogs that are the police because they quote unquote save the day. So it's these stories that the police are going to help. And in fact, we should look for them. There was a one time at a story circle, this person was reading a book and the, and the refrain was, help is on the way. Help is on the way. It gets kept going through any number of crises. That, anyways, just to say that help is not always on the way, as many of us know from trying to seek police protection from harm.   [00:51:14] And that when it does arrive, if it does, that it can cause harm to us, that we can be the target of it, especially if we're disabled or marginalized in another way. So propaganda is so pervasive, but it's this idea that the police will will help us. And we'll keep us safe. And I know from personal experience, my students know that that's not always true. So then what is the alternative? We kind of like add our voice and creativity into the mix, which is also very hard because it's a lot to work through. People are so culturally accustomed to thinking about external sources of help and protection from the state. You know?    [00:51:52] Miko Lee: And many marginalized communities have created their own pods of safety, like the Black Panthers and queer and trans folks because they knew that they could not rely on the cops to be able to help.   [00:52:04] Tatiana Chaterji: Absolutely. Yep. And that's how I learned with Insight, women of Color against Violence, learning from people, immigrant women, sex workers, people who are not protected, who could not, or undocumented immigrants who couldn't call on the state for help. What. What do they need and how do they create that for themselves?   [00:52:22] Mimi Kim was a big inspiration for me. So in my politics, kind of like trying to bring more people into this, right? Like, what, what does it look like when you talk about abolition? And students are like, no, are you kidding? Like, we can't get rid of prisons. And, and, and that is absolutely okay to have that conversation and to sort of open up the possibilities there, recognizing that many people have not even gotten the kind of justice or protection that a prison might afford for some people and maybe has in some instances. Right? So to start with that and to be like, you deserve better now. You deserved better, your family deserves better.    [00:53:00] Miko Lee: You deserve food and shelter.    [00:53:02] Tatiana Chaterji: Yeah.    [00:53:02] Miko Lee: The basic things. Yes.    [00:53:04] Tatiana Chaterji: Yeah.    [00:53:05] Miko Lee: Thank you so much for sharing. I really appreciate it. So I found this quote in your book by Aurora Levin Morales, and I'm just wondering, please read that quote for me, and then tell me the why. Why you included this, why it's so important. [00:53:20] Tatiana Chaterji: Aurora Elevens Morales is this poet who has given me so much inspiration with her work. And this quote was on the website of Restore Oakland, where I've partnered and I just, uh, shout out to Kari and Tash and everyone. So she says, for what is revolution, if not healing? And I put it, uh, to start off my I think it's the conclusion, breathing in shards from a broken sky, new air, and new lungs.   [00:53:46] And I kind of put forth this idea of RJ lungs, which really like strength are, are, are strong with the power of empathy and connection. And yeah, I think that political work and change making happens with healing, it's before and after and all around that there has to be that synchronicity between healing what's wounded and, and, and giving us space for that while also activating change that they shouldn't happen in these bubbles, which I think is, uh, more and more people are embracing that interplay between the two. It's not just you, you heal over here and therapy. You do your political work where you burn out and people are getting abused and hurt all the time. It's like more we should hold all of our human messy selves in the political work.    [00:54:35] Miko Lee: Thanks so much. And then my final thing is you included a quote by a ninth grade student. Could you share that quote with me and    [00:54:43] Tatiana Chaterji: Yes.    [00:54:43] Miko Lee: Why it's so important?    [00:54:44] Tatiana Chaterji: One of my, um, teacher comrades Danielle Zimmerman, this quote came from one of her students in a writing exercise. And Ms. Z is someone who just really embraces RJ in all, in, in all ways. And so the student says, feed your heart with love, forgiveness, hope, and healing words. There is no other way to survive. And I think for me, it's like if we are supposed to live in this world, if we want to live here, and we are taught that we have to be hard, we have to protect ourselves and be harsh and battle the hostility, uh, what is going to happen to us as a result? How are we shaping the, the, the next generation, our families the school environments that we're part of, so that instead of that hardness feed yourself with this love, with this softness, with the power of of tenderness and and healing and it just, yeah, this student is so brilliant.   [00:55:46] Miko Lee: Thank you so much for listening tonight. Remember to reconnect to your ancestral technologies and hold in the power of tenderness.   [00:55:55] Please check out our website, kpfa.org/program/apexexpress to find out more about our show and our guests tonight. We thank all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating, and sharing your visions with the world because your voices are important. Apex Express is produced by Ayame Keane-Lee, Anuj Vaidya, Cheryl Truong, Isabel Li, Jalena Keane-Lee, Miko Lee, Miata Tan, Preti Mangala-Shekar and Swati Rayasam. Tonight's show was produced by me Miko Lee, and edited by Ayame Keane-Lee. Have a great night.   The post APEX Express – 3.19.26- The Power of Tenderness appeared first on KPFA.

What a pleasure it was to talk to Ruth Scurr, author of John Aubrey: My Own Life, about the great man himself, who was born four hundred years ago this month. Aubrey is best know for his splendid Brief Lives but he preserved a huge amount of knowledge which historians still rely on. There are many things we only know because of Aubrey—things about people Hobbes and Hooke, Stonehenge, architectural history. We also talked about Janet Malcom, the genre of biography, and modern fiction.HENRY OLIVER: Today I'm talking to Ruth Scurr. Ruth is a fellow of Gonville and Caius College in the University of Cambridge, where she specializes in the history of political thought. But more importantly, she is the biographer of John Aubrey, one of my favorite writers, who is celebrating 400 years of his birth this year. Ruth, hello.RUTH SCURR: Hi, Henry.OLIVER: Can you begin by giving us a brief life of John Aubrey?SCURR: So born in 1626, 17th-century antiquarian, collector, early fellow at the Royal Society. Well connected to scientific and the literary circles of his day. Someone who sees himself more as a whetstone: a person who could help sharpen other people's ideas. As a recorder, someone who treasured the details, the minutiae of the lives he encountered, and pass those details on to posterity.He's nonjudgmental, witty, kind, inventive. Very, very sociable. Very good friend. But he's hopeless at self-advancement. Begins his life as a gentleman, but he inherits debts from his father and he can never really achieve financial stability.Never marries, ends up homeless and worried about being arrested for his debts. And he has to sell his precious collection of books periodically through his life to raise some much-needed cash, but he keeps his manuscripts safe. And he does this at the end of his life by putting them into the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, afterwards known as the Bodleian, and where they still are today.OLIVER: So how many manuscripts did he save for us?SCURR: Of his own manuscripts or other people's manuscripts?OLIVER: Other people's. Because he was collecting all sorts of precious things.SCURR: Oh, absolutely. He was the person who, when someone died, would go round if he could to their house and ask what was happening about the manuscripts. He's particularly concerned, obviously, with his friends. So he had a close relationship with Robert Hooke and he wanted to make sure that Hooke's many inventions and scientific contributions were recorded.And he has this wonderful line in the life of Hooke where he says, “It's so hard to get people to do right by themselves.” And in his childhood, he had seen the fallout from the dissolution of the monasteries. He'd become very troubled by the habit of using manuscript pages which had been displaced in the dissolution. He saw them being used in schools to cover textbooks. He saw them being used to—or he heard about them at least being used—to wrap up gloves or to create stoppers in bottles. And this really troubled him from, from a very early age.And I think he has another beautiful line where he says after the dissolution of the monasteries, whereas these manuscripts had been kept safe, they flew around like butterflies. And he wanted to catch them and preserve them and to stop people letting the papers and the precious manuscripts of their relatives do the same. So he was very instrumental in rescuing manuscripts, other people's manuscripts. And then fortunately with his own, he knew Ashmole and they had the shared astrology interest.Ashmole was a very different sort of person who basically said to Oxford, look, I'll give you my collections, but there has to be a museum for them. And luckily Aubrey was able to use that museum as a safe place for his own manuscripts.OLIVER: So we know things about Robert Hooke and Thomas Hobbes and all these other luminaries of the 17th century, thanks to Aubrey. What else do we know, thanks to him?SCURR: We know what Stonehenge looked like in his day because he was a very good draftsman. He drew pictures of Stonehenge. He'd grown up in Wiltshire, he'd known those stones from childhood. He understood that Avebury nearby was a comparable monument, and he took Charles II to see it, and persuaded the king to get the locals to stop breaking up the stones, to reuse the stones, which was the practice.He also made drawings of windows because he was possibly the first person as a historian of architecture to realize that you could date buildings by the style of their windows. So we have those drawings. He was also interested in the history of costume. He did a survey of Surrey, of Wiltshire.So these are all sort of focuses in his manuscripts and people who've used them come to really appreciate how pioneering Aubrey was. But of course he doesn't finish them. He doesn't publish those manuscripts. So it's very easy really to overlook the innovation and the contribution and the wonderful imagination that he had.OLIVER: You mean if he'd published a book, he would have a much bigger reputation?SCURR: Well, I think there's two things. Yes, but in a sense, you know, the Brief Lives have been published after his death in various forms. But I think one of the most engaging things about Aubrey is that he's a modest and self-effacing person. And I already mentioned the idea he had of himself as a whetstone to other people's talents.There aren't that many people—certainly not in my life, maybe there are in yours—but who would effortlessly describe themselves as a whetstone to other people's talents. Most people want to be at the center. They're happy to have clever and literary friends, but they want a place there at the table as well.And Aubrey really was very, very invested in helping other people to do right by themselves, as he said about Hooke. And he very movingly—this is one of the inspirations really for my book that I wrote about him—he spent all that time collating the information about other people's lives. And for his own life, he puts down a few lines, a couple of facts and everything.He says, well, this could be used as the binding of a book. You know, it's sort of waste paper really. So he doesn't write his own life. Other people's lives he's going to convey to posterity. He doesn't see his own life as really being at that level of needing the attention that he gave, for example, to Milton or to Harvey or Hobbes, as you mentioned.OLIVER: He's born the year after Charles I comes to the throne. So he obviously lives through a fairly terrible period of history and very tumultuous, changeable in lots of different ways. The new world, the new learning, new religion, new politics, everything is changing. And he's obsessed with the old ways. How did these historical events—is he reacting against his time? Is he just born in a lucky time in a way?SCURR: So he was a student in Oxford during the Civil War. And you are right. The upheaval is very disturbing for his generation. It means he gets called back from Oxford by his father because it's dangerous to be there. And he's really, really upset by that because, it's like us, when we were students or our students today. You finally get away from your family and there you are in this place with all these exciting peers and access to books that you've never had before or at least to that extent, libraries, et cetera.And suddenly there's a war on and you've got to go home. So there's that disturbance. Then there is the fact that actually he was close to Hobbes. Hobbes actually was a Malmesbury man, so Wiltshire, very near Aubrey. And had come back to visit the school where Hobbes had been, which was where Aubrey was at school. And so they had met in Aubrey's childhood, and then he would've been aware of Hobbes having to go into exile. And then Hobbes coming back, of course. And that's a very important time in his life.And it's not an accident that Hobbes asks Aubrey to write his life because Hobbes knows how careful Aubrey is. And he knows that Aubrey has information that he can convey in the life. So that is really the first life that he writes. And it's different from the others. There's a different sort of origin. And it's after he's done that, that he starts to think, well, actually, you know, I can think of at least 50, 55 other people's lives. And now I've got my hand in, I might start on those as well.So in that period of upheaval there are wonderful stories. Maybe we'll look at some of the Brief Lives, but there's this amazing story that he captures in the life of William Harvey, which is a description of Harvey having been at the battlefield in Edgehill and recording one of the people who had been fighting and wounded, surviving by having the good sense to pull a dead body on top of himself, to keep himself warm on the battlefield. Things like that, which make the war very much alive. This is brutal, this civil war. It's a long time ago and we think we passed over it, but the really brutal reality of war is captured in the Brief Lives through the anecdotes and the stories of that generation that Aubrey preserves.OLIVER: How English is he?SCURR: Well, as opposed to what?OLIVER: Welsh.SCURR: Okay. Well he goes to Wales often and is very interested in Wales. I think he sees himself as English. I think he's very invested in English customs and stories and people. He's not nationalistic in any sense like that. What he's interested in is the inherited ways of living.And he's very interested in language and different dialects. That's one of the other things; he starts to collect different words. He was very aware of the Cornish dialect, for example. So I'd say it's a very decentered England that's rooted in customs, traditions, inherited stories.And there's a big place there for both the future and the past. Huge excitement about The Royal Society, English science, what can be achieved through the sharing of knowledge. But again, Aubrey's not an insular person in that respect. So, he wished he could go on the Grand Tour when he was a student. He would really have loved to have done that. It's one of the things that he actually talked to Harvey about, going and traveling as his contemporaries, for example, John Evelyn did.But Aubrey actually says—this is very typical of Aubrey—that his mother persuaded him out of it. His mother didn't want him going off on the Grand Tour. She was afraid for him. And he regretted it later in life. But it's so typical of Aubrey that he would pay attention to his mother and her anxieties.OLIVER: This interest in the present and the past—so he loves all the history, but he's in the Royal Society. One thing I like in your book is the way he talks about, oh, my grandfather still dresses in the old ways, like he's an Elizabethan, but at the same time he's doing a very sort of Baconian project. He's influenced by Bacon. Is Aubrey a sort of paradox? Does this make sense in a way?SCURR: Only in so far as lots of other people are as well. I was just looking at the Harvey life, and there's a story there about how when Harvey was a student he was meant to be setting sail with some friends. And he's stopped and told, “No, you can't get on this boat. You have to wait.” And he says, “Well, what have I done wrong? Why can't I get on this boat?” He said, “No, honestly, we need to have a word with you. You are not going on the boat.” And then the boat sinks, everyone dies. And this is apparently because the guy who stopped him had a dream that he needed to stop Harvey going. Harvey told Aubrey that story.Harvey also is—as Aubrey sort of slightly inaccurately puts it, is the inventor of the circulation of the blood. And you think, well, that's going a little bit far, perhaps not actually the inventor, but certainly the first person to discover, to understand about circulating blood.So there's another example of someone's life includes, I wouldn't be alive unless somebody had had this premonition and dream that I was about to die. Which is from a completely different world, from the rational, scientific understanding of the body or the other scientific advances that are going on at the time.OLIVER: And Aubrey's happy to just sort of coexist with both of those because of his interest in astrology?SCURR: And not just astrology. He's very interested in astrology and nativities, as he called it. In some of the Brief Lives, you see the sort of recording of the information that would be needed to cast an astrological shape for the life.But he is also interested in the fact that people believe in fairies and ghosts. He doesn't look down on those beliefs. Nor does he say that he necessarily believes in the presence of fairies or the interventions of the supernatural. But he's got a very open mind in relation to that. And certainly being simultaneously interested in early astronomy and astrology together is, to us, very striking. But then I think it was much more normal.OLIVER: Why do you think he resisted ordination?SCURR: Because he said the cassock stinks. He considered ordination several times because he knew it would be a living, it would be a way of being able to have some income, probably not very onerous duties. Some of his friends say to him, “Come on, Aubrey, it really won't be that much work. You'll just get a curate who'll do it all, and you'll get the living, and then you won't have to be worrying all the time about your paycheck. You haven't got a paycheck. It would be a living coming to you.”And on one occasion, one of the reasons he gives for not doing that is he thinks well, what if there's another religious upheaval and I have to change sides again? What if Roman Catholicism comes back and I ended up on the wrong side of it?And, again, would it really have been that difficult to go with the flow? But I think, in his own way, he had found his way of living, which was intensely sociable. And perhaps he didn't want that constraint of being a member of the clergy around him.OLIVER: Do you think he was a nonbeliever?SCURR: Well. I don't know the answer to that. I don't think so at all. I think he probably was a straightforward Christian believer. I think perhaps he'd seen enough of the religious conflicts and wars to be afraid of fanaticism on both sides. And that would fit certainly with his relationship with Hobbes.I don't have any reason to think he's an atheist. He's got a beautiful way of writing about death and there's this wonderful line he has when he says, “God bless you and me in our in and out world.” So the fact that we refer to his works as the Brief Lives because they're short, but everybody's life is brief.And even those who live, as he did, into his 70s, it feels brief. And there's these very moving descriptions of him at funerals. I was thinking about this the other day because he often records where someone's buried. And I recently wrote my first entry for the Dictionary of National Biography. I did the one for Hilary Mantel, which was a great honor and extremely interesting.And when I came back to the Brief Lives, I thought, gosh, I wish I'd put at the end of that DNB entry where she's actually buried, that would've made sense to do that. And I didn't do it because the DNB is quite formalized; they've got their formula and you need to stick to it.But maybe I'll add it in. Because it seems to me very moving to record where people are actually buried. That would fit I think with her religious sensibility, with a regard for the afterlife, and with the rites of passage at the end of life.OLIVER: What is it that makes Aubrey such a good biographer?SCURR: So I think the modesty that is in his spirit, the noticing, the minutiae that he both notices and values and his wit. He has a sensitivity to these funny and revealing quirky stories about the people that he knows. Or he finds them in the stories he's told by people who did know them.There's an eyewitness account aspect to it as well. Or at least it's an oral history. “I was told this by . . .” He's extremely precise. He'll try to assemble the facts so far as he can, and then he'll tell you what people's close friends said about them, and he will do so very, very carefully so that you know this is a story that he's been told that he's passing on.And then he doesn't pass moral judgment. He doesn't adjudicate. And finally, he thinks of himself as doing all of this for posterity and that posterity, i.e. us or the people who come after us, will find things there and he's not going to tell them what to find. He's not going to shape the life and say, this is what you should think about it.He will give you the raw materials, he'll give you the stories, he'll give you a flavor of the details of the life, and then posterity can look there and can see, for example, the disagreements between Hobbes and Isaac Newton. There are people who've written lives of Hooke and Newton. And there are people who've written lives and you can be team Newton or team Hooke. Interestingly, Aubrey is team Hooke. He doesn't write a life of Newton. And he wants, as I said, to do well by Hooke. But his way of doing that isn't to say Mr.Hooke was fantastic and Newton robbed him of lots of his ideas. He says, let me show you, let me assemble and make a catalog, if I can, of all these hundreds of contributions that Hooke made.OLIVER: When did you discover Aubrey?SCURR: So I discovered Aubrey because I was reviewing for the LRB, The Biographer's Tale, and I had come across a really interesting—and it's still in the introduction to my book—a really interesting reflection on the difference between Aubrey and Lytton Strachey, a reflection made by Anthony Powell, and I had quoted it or alluded to it in my review. And I had gone and started to read Aubrey as a result of that. So I was led to it through reviewing, via Anthony Powell, and then into the Brief Lives.But then another very strange thing happened, which is I met for the very first time, Janet Malcolm, who is someone who became very important in my life. And because she knew or had been told that I'd written this review, she read the review before we met. And she said to me, she said, “Ruth, I read your review”—and I doubt Janet Malcolm was a massive fan of A.S. Byatt, to be absolutely honest. We never really discussed that further, but she said, “I read your review and I was really interested in this Aubrey. I was so interested in what you quoted about Aubrey and the difference between his biographical approach and Lytton Strachey.”And then it sort of stuck in my mind and suddenly as I was coming toward the end of my first book, which was a totally different book on Robespierre and the French Revolution, I just knew I wanted to write about Aubrey. And I think at the time my then-husband really thought I'd gone mad actually, because you're not supposed to do that, are you?I mean, you're supposed to stick in your period and certainly build on it. So, you know, a book on Marra or even Napoleon would've been okay, that would've made sense. But to circle back to the 17th century and write about Aubrey seemed extremely eccentric.OLIVER: Well, what was Janet Malcolm like?SCURR: Oh, Janet was absolutely wonderful. She has this reputation of being sort of terrifying. And, of course, I was extremely interested in her forensic examination of biography which we had very interesting conversations about. She was a deeply kind person, extremely nurturing of younger writers, and extremely funny as well.That's the other thing that you don't associate with her sometimes from this sort of public image of a very austere interviewer, The Journalist and the Murderer, In the Freud Archives, et cetera. Actually, she was a really warm and extremely witty person.OLIVER: A lot of historians don't think biography is real history. Why do you take biography seriously?SCURR: Well, Michael Holroyd writes Works on Paper—and I love Michael Holroyd so much. And he has this wonderful line—I won't remember it exactly—but it's about biography being the b*****d offspring of history and the novel, and both are ashamed of it.And I think some of those distinctions actually have broken down. I know lots of historians who are very interested in biographical writing. I think it depends. There are certain historical schools that maybe are not so interested in lives.And to be fair, the history of ideas is—which I belong to, and in a sense I'm a rebel from—is one of those. I remember there coming a point where I had spent so much time thinking about the constitutional ideas for the representative republic in the middle of the French Revolution, that actually the French Revolution could have been happening on Mars for all it mattered about the actual sequence of events. What mattered was the structure of the ideas.And it's difficult because the school I belong to in Cambridge wants to put the ideas into context all the time. But again, by context you don't really mean people's lives; more the discourses and the conversations and the ideas of the time that are the landscape, the intellectual landscape, if you like.So I rebelled at a certain point and I was like, well, you know, I'm actually going to go through the revolution day by day because that period is short. And I think it really matters, the lived experience there. I think many, many history books quote Aubrey with enormous respect and say, “as Aubrey says,” or, “according to Aubrey,” and pull those details forwards.I suppose some history is quite instrumental in its use of biography, so it wants to draw the reader in with a few anecdotes and a little bit of what does somebody wear on their head? And who was their first love, that kind of thing. But it's perhaps not very engaged with the real work of trying to capture the shape or the feel of a life.OLIVER: And of a temperament, right? I think one thing biography gives us is that sense that a lot of these big decisions or events in history are quite temperamental. As well as being based in ideas and events.SCURR: Oh, yeah. Absolutely.OLIVER: Your life of Aubrey, at one point you tried to write as a novel.SCURR: Yeah. I had to stop that quite fast.OLIVER: Why?SCURR: Because Aubrey is too important. I didn't want to make up things for him. As someone who's come right up to that line of the history and the novel, I do think it's very clear to be on one side or the other. And again, going back to Hilary Mantel, she wrote those wonderful Reith Lectures on historical fiction.And, like her, I think that it's not about ignoring the facts or embellishing the facts. It is about the gaps. It's about imagining what isn't in the record and should have been, and trying to reconstruct that inside the novel. But at the time, I felt that the gaps with Aubrey didn't actually matter that much.There was so much there that I could pull together to give a sense of him and his sensibility. Now actually, scholars in this field will all be very, very keen to advance our knowledge of those gaps. And that's wonderful. You know, what exactly was Aubrey doing when he visited France? You know, at the time I wrote my book that seemed very unclear.I think my colleague in Oxford, Kate Bennett, knows that now and will write her own biography. And she will fill in many of these gaps that I sort of happily included in the form that I'd found for his life because giving him that first person voice, I was able to focus on the evidence that I thought had been very underused at that point.OLIVER: Now Kate Bennett did a wonderful edition of the Brief Lives with lots of excellent footnotes and investigations. And you wrote that it gave us a new understanding of Aubrey.SCURR: Absolutely. And of the lives themselves. And Kate and I got to know each other and became friends while we were both writing our books. And people we knew before we met were very keen to sort of set us against each other. So they would wind us up. I would meet someone and they'd say, “Ruth, there you are. You've written a book about the French Revolution and now you are going to write a book about Aubrey. But don't you know there is a scholar in Oxford who spent her entire academic life working on Aubrey?” And it built up a picture of fear that you shouldn't trespass on somebody else's ground.And then people would do a sort of reverse thing to her that they would say, “Oh, Kate, gosh, you've been working a long time on Aubrey and where is your Clarendon edition after all? And did you know there's somebody in Cambridge who's going to write this popular book about Aubrey?”Anyway, finally we met at a conference and we really actually just liked each other and we decided it's fine. I was doing my thing. She's doing something very different. And we became friends, and I see that as a triumph over a sort of more traditional, maybe even dare I say, male and territorial approach to academic life and to knowledge in general actually.OLIVER: Yeah. Because the two books are great complements to each other. They're not rivalrous in that sense.SCURR: Absolutely not. Kate's book, it's not just an addition. It's as much as you can ever do. It's a reconstruction of the manuscript as Aubrey left it and intended it with all the gaps and the notes to himself to fill this in. And his changes of mind and his deletions and all of that. And so it's an astonishing thing. Because it's not just a copy of it. It takes you in, it helps you understand what he was intending with those collections, as you called them, my pretty collections.And so that edition that she had been working on for a very long time came out in 2015, the same year as my book came out. And it felt like an amazing year for Aubrey. And now, we'll be celebrating the 400th anniversary of his birth. But that year, 2015, was a very special, obviously for us, but I think for Aubrey more broadly.OLIVER: How much of an influence has Aubrey had on English biography?SCURR: As we know, there's the huge influence in terms of “Aubrey says.” Open any book on the 17th century, and it will be “Aubrey says,” “according to Aubrey,” et cetera. So a huge influence in that respect. With regard to the actual form, I think it's very, very pervasive and important, and we have to look at it very carefully.I mentioned earlier the very important difference between what Aubrey does and what Lytton Strachey did. There are some similarities in so far as Strachey will go for the vivid detail. He give you these powerful anecdotes. But actually he spins them as well.And that's what Anthony Powell so brilliantly showed. And the example was of Francis Bacon, the life of Francis Bacon who Aubrey has a description of Bacon right at the end of his life, the circumstances leading up to Bacon's death where he is on Highgate Hill and he decides to conduct an experiment to see if snow will preserve a chicken or a hen as well as salt. So he is stuffing this carcass of the hen with snow. Catches a cold, ends up having to stay with a friend, sleeps in a bed that hasn't been aired for a long time, and dies. And that's the end of Lord Bacon.So Aubrey gives us all this, and then along comes Lytton Strachey. And he takes it, and he says an old man disgraced, shattered, alone on Highgate Hill, stuffing a dead foul with snow, which makes it sound like he's lost his mind at the end of his life. And then Anthony Powell examined that and he said, look, the story of stuffing the hen with snow is Aubrey's.Bacon was certainly an old man at the time of the incident. He was disgraced. He may have been shattered. No doubt at times he was alone. But Aubrey's story of stuffing the foul on Highgate Hill shows Bacon accompanied by the king's physician, conducting a serious experiment to test the preservative properties of snow and, on becoming indisposed, finding accommodation in the house of the Earl of Arundel.And so you take that same story and, as Anthony Powell says, you combine the story, the fragment preserved by Aubrey with some epithets, and you convey an oblique point. It's a biographical method for actually building up a picture of the person. And it really matters what you do with those fragments.So I think the fact that Aubrey is pretty pure about this, he gives you the fragments and another biographer might come along and think, okay, what's going on here with Venetia Stanley and dying in her bed after drinking Viper wine? Let's build up a story about that. And there was a rumor at the time that her husband had murdered her, et cetera. Aubrey doesn't comment. He just gives you the fragment. And I think afterwards, people have not only used the fragments in their own work, but they've also developed a technique of working up those fragments into whatever picture you decide as a biographer you are going to draw.OLIVER: Now as well as a historian, you are a literary critic. You review novels. You are a Hilary Mantel admirer. Who else among the modern fiction writers do you admire?SCURR: Amongst the modern fiction writers? I'm getting quite old, Henry. Lots of my people are dead now. Alice Monroe is someone I'm extremely interested in. Hilary Manel, obviously, Beryl Bainbridge, Penelope Fitzgerald. And I love the fact Penelope Fitzgerald was a biographer simultaneously with becoming a novelist.And I was thinking back to this actually, that Charlotte Mew and Her Friends—that's the title. And then the Anthony Powell is John Aubrey and His Friends. And I was thinking, is there something about these people who have a lot of friends and the biographical genre? It's interesting.In terms of younger people writing, I just read a wonderful short story by Gwendoline Riley in the latest Paris Review. “A–Z” it's called—very disturbing. Very, very good story. And Gwendoline has a novel coming out later this year, which I shall read with enormous interest. It's going to be called Palm House. I absolutely revered George Saunders, although I haven't yet read Vigil. I'm only on Substack for George Saunders and you Henry. That's it, basically.OLIVER: That shows very good taste.SCURR: Very good taste. Yeah. And a couple of others. My friend Danielle Allen's The Renovator, I also subscribe to, but very few. But George Saunders wrote a wonderful post on his Substack about maybe a year and a half, maybe more even ago, about how he found the solution to the beginning of Lincoln in the Bardo. And he wanted to find a way to tell the story of the death of Lincoln's son. It's so typical of him—and I love this—he said he didn't want the ghosts. He knew it was going to be narrated by the ghosts in the morgue. And he couldn't have them coming home one evening saying, “Oh, you know, I just popped over the wall and had a look in through the White House window. And guess what I saw?” So how was he going to get the voices in?And then he said he'd got these extracts from the letters and from the literature that he needed. And he ended up putting them all on the floor and thinking, what order shall I put them in? And that reminded me of when I was struggling to find a way to write about Aubrey. I suddenly had the idea that I could just put them as diary entries without comment.I would sort of curate these entries and things like that. So, that was a very interesting moment for me about sort of the construction and the choices that go in both to writing a novel and to writing, in my case, a sort of experimental biography.OLIVER: So Hilary Mantel, Lincoln in the Bardo, Penelope Fitzgerald, Beryl Bainbridge—there's a lot of historical fiction here. This is the genre you most enjoy. It's been a sort of golden age for historical fiction.SCURR: But those people aren't just historical fiction writers. It's very important. They have all written historical fiction, but actually they write other novels as well. It doesn't matter the order in their careers, they go in and out of it. So I would say that actually it's those people as writers and sensibilities that attract me.Anita Brookner is another example. I love Anita Brookner's novels. I also love her book on David, the revolutionary painter, that she wrote—Jacques-Louis David—that's a fantastic book. So there's a sense in which I see them as writers and the genre of historical fiction, you are right, it does cut across, but I don't think that's what I'm following. I think I'm following what I find on the page from a particular sensibility and of course a command of language, which is in all of those cases, absolutely extraordinary.OLIVER: Because they're all quite innovative as historical novelists as well. And it's not the main part of what is recognized as their achievement in a way.SCURR: No, no.OLIVER: It's been quietly a second great period of the historical novel. It seems crazy to say Hilary Mantel is our Walter Scott, but that is quite high praise.SCURR: So I think you deal much more definitely than I do with these sort of epoch-defining ideas. I think I'm just more intermittently focused on particular things that I like. I used to do an enormous amount of reviewing. I've had to stop it because—talk about being the whetstone.I was constantly reviewing when I was in my 30s and much of my 40s actually. And I don't regret it in the least. And one of the reasons I don't regret it, especially with novels, was because I would never have read all those novels if I hadn't been reviewing them.And even some of the nonfiction, I wouldn't. But here's an example: Because I'd been reviewing so much, I ended up quite early 2007, becoming a Booker judge. And part of that process is that anyone who's been on the list before they automatically get entered by the publisher—McEwen and Barnes, et cetera. Fine.And then the publisher can put forward two books they choose and they can be anything. And then they assemble a list of so-called call-ins. And those are the books where the publisher says, “Oh, please, please call this in. I mean, we didn't make it one of our two, but we think it's absolutely amazing and you must read it.” And you think, well, if it's so amazing, what were you doing not making it one of your two. But anyway, whatever, we call it in. And on that call-in list there was actually, Anne Enright's novel, The Gathering, and that ended up winning the year I was a judge.And I knew Anne Enright's writing because I had reviewed several of her earlier books, especially one called What Are You Like?, which is quite obscure. It's not the book people think of when they think about Anne Enright. But I knew because I'd done all that time in the reviewing trenches, as it were, how extraordinary Anne Enright is as a writer. And we were able to say, well, absolutely go ahead and call this in. And then sure enough it won.OLIVER: What about biography? Modern biography? You like Michael Holroyd?SCURR: Well, we've already talked about Janet Malcolm. She's a sort of anti-biographer in some respect, sort of subversive of the entire genre. I very much like and respect Antonia Fraser's historical biographies and especially her one of Marie Antoinette which, again, came out very close to when my Robespierre book came out. And it's like seeing the other side of the story and that was absolutely extraordinary.And one of the biographies I go back to over and over again I'm extremely interested in Virginia Woolf. You are obviously a fan with The Common Reader. I was looking at it, preparing for this, that she's got this absolutely hilarious short biography of John Evelyn, and it is called Rambling Round Evelyn. Do you know it?OLIVER: Yes.SCURR: It's so beautifully constructed. It's got the butterflies landing on the dahlias pretty much throughout the actual text of the short biography. But then it's got this brilliant bit where she sort of makes fun of John Evelyn. And she says, the difference between then and now is, if we saw a red admiral, we would admire it, but we wouldn't—and this is very mean of her—we wouldn't rush into the kitchen and get a kitchen knife in order to dissect the red admiral's head. Right? It's so ridiculous and it so makes fun of Evelyn.I was listening to the podcast you made with Hermione Lee. And Hermione was saying that she thought what made Woolf such a good critic was that she was very empathetic. But I also think she's capable of that kind of sharp, wicked distance as well, where she goes, I see you, John Evelyn, you are so proud of your garden, and you're actually—looked at from my point of view—a bit of an idiot in some respects as well.OLIVER: I like her because she's so judgmental, which is not a very popular thing to say, but she is. She is really capable of saying that, you know, as long as prose will be read, Addison will be read. But on the other hand, he's boring and rambling and not very good in many ways. Absolutely cutting.SCURR: No, totally, totally. Yeah.OLIVER: What about some of the sort of big names: Richard Holmes, Claire Tomalin?SCURR: Yeah. Oh, Claire, absolutely. I mean, goodness, they've been such influences on me, both of them. Absolutely Richard and his Footsteps and then of course, and those other books, The Ratters of Lightning Ridge and then The Age of Wonder. That's so important, so wonderful.Claire, I revere, I loved and still recommend to my students her book on Mary Wollstonecraft. I also, by the way, love Virginia Woolf's essay on Mary Wollstonecraft. I think that's a different sort of thing where Woolf describes Mary Wollstonecraft pursuing her lover like a dolphin. She won't let him go. He thought he'd hooked a minnow. He wasn't expecting a dolphin to come after him. It was Mary Wollstonecraft. So, Claire Tomalin, her Peyps, Hardy, absolutely hugely important books and deeply, deeply humane actually.And that's the other thing, I think biography, by definition, you do get the sharpness of Woolf or Strachey, but I think to put someone else's life at the center of your book, that's a humane act. It's to say, no, I'm going to spend this number years of my life preserving and communicating this other person's life. And that's a very wonderful thing to do.OLIVER: What do you think of the sort of standard criticism of biography, that it's just not accurate enough? So, for example, Austen Scholars will point to various things in the Tomalin biography where she's deleted the facts or said things to make the narrative flow, but it's just not really accurate enough. The novelistic tendency overwhelms the historical one or whatever. You've obviously avoided that with various decisions you made in the Aubrey book, but as a genre.SCURR: I'd never say that. That would be a real hostage to fortune, wouldn't it?OLIVER: Well, you know what I mean?SCURR: And saying, look at, look at this—OLIVER: Page 28.SCURR: —at this piece of nonsense you introduced. Well, accuracy is extremely important. What I think about that is it all contributes to knowledge. If someone comes along and finds a mistake or wants to bring in some other evidence—And actually Kate Bennett, she does this with Aubrey as well. She says that, oh, Aubrey's really got this wrong, or he's gotten in a muddle about that. She's not saying, and therefore let's just chuck it out because it's inaccurate. You need to see this as well as that. So I think of it more as a collaborative relationship about adding to knowledge and if somebody corrects a previous book or previous claim or something, or point something, then that's fine actually.Again, going back to Holroyd, he thought that that biography was an art form constrained by the facts. So he's got a place for art in it. And I know what he means by that. And I think ultimately that's probably why I couldn't write a novel about a biographical subject because of being constrained by the facts. And yet Hilary Mantel has written many historical novels that are absolutely constrained by the facts. It's just what they're doing besides the facts, alongside the facts. So perhaps some people are going to come along and contribute other information and other people will come along and contribute some imaginative answer to the whole. And both are fine. I think we should be liberal broad church here.OLIVER: Is the genre dying?SCURR: Not so far as I'm aware. We are always doing this about genres dying, aren't we? Those things are always dying.OLIVER: People talk about biography dying a lot.SCURR: Well, perhaps they do. I haven't been listening to that. Why do they say it's dying?OLIVER: Because you can't sell these 700-page lives of people.SCURR: We can't sell most books. I mean, if we're going to go buy sales . . .OLIVER: This, yeah. Well, this story in The Times recently as well, that all the nonfiction that sells now is trash and that the serious books aren't there. And the whole civilization's dying routine.SCURR: Well if it is, we just have to carry on doing what we are doing.OLIVER: Yeah. What do you think is going to be the future of biography? Because I think more than a lot of other nonfiction genres, it's so changeable, it's so flexible. If you look at any decade, you see so much variety in structure and form. What do you think is coming next?SCURR: I'm like Aubrey; I think that's going to be for posterity to decide. As long as there are human beings, we will tell stories and we will want to tell stories about ourselves, and we will want to tell stories about the people we have loved and or hated, or the people who we think matter, for whatever reason, in science, in art, in literature. There will always be a need for the story of the human life.I think it will inevitably change enormously in ways that we couldn't possibly imagine. Just as Aubrey knew that he couldn't possibly imagine what posterity was going to make of the information that he had collected, and he didn't think that was something that he should be constrained by. He thought it was about passing it on.OLIVER: And what will Ruth Scurr do next?SCURR: I'll ask her. I think she's supposed to be writing about Rousseau and is very excited about that, but has been massively distracted by the Royal Society of Literature and becoming chair of that. So, I'm trying to pull myself back into my project. And I was very excited actually, because again, when I was looking at The Common Reader I saw Woolf refer to the Montaigne, Pepys, and Rousseau as people who had provided these spectacular portraits of themselves. And I was very excited by that. So I'm going to write a book about Rousseau and his time in England.OLIVER: Very exciting. I look forward to it. Ruth Scurr, author of John Aubrey: My Own Life, thank you very much.SCURR: Thank you, Henry. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.commonreader.co.uk

“They're both naughty boys in the playground, leveraging the absence of clarity to their own advantage. Neither one of them is an authoritative leader of opinion with the interests of everyone at heart.” — Keith TeareWhat a difference a week makes. Last Saturday, Keith Teare was arguing that Anthropic was wrong to push back against the US government's use of AI in warfare. This week his editorial is entitled “No Good Guys.” He's used AI to put images of Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, and Pete Hegseth around the same table—and found all three guilty of poor leadership. According to Keith, Amodei is “ideologically” (whatever that means) driven. Altman is commercially driven and Hegseth is just following orders. None of them is asking the all-important questions about AI policy. And the man who should be—Trump's AI czar David Sacks—is absent-without-leave. All four should be court martialed.Yes, a lot has happened in seven days. Altman publicly supported Amodei's position on surveillance and autonomous weapons—then pulled a classic Sam u-turn and signed a contract with the Department of War. Amodei's internal memo was leaked to The Information, revealing that he'd interpreted the government's “no unlawful use” language as meaning there is no law. And the US military used Claude in the Iran war anyway. As Keith puts it: they're all naughty boys in the playground, leveraging the gaps to their own self-advantage.The only problem, of course, is that this isn't a playground game. And that these men are all shaping the lives (and deaths) of countless people around the world.Meanwhile, Om Malik's “Post of the Week” offers a devastating contrast between Xi's China and Trump's America. China, Om argues, has published a five-year AI plan built on open-source software and bottom-up adoption. America, in contrast, has AI theater. No strategy, no policy, no leadership—just contracts, leaks, and perpetual spin. Then there's the Startup of the Week, Jobright, which hit $5 million in annual revenue with nine people, suggesting that the companies of the future may not need humans at all. Keith's own SignalRank has four people and claims to be going public. We seem to be heading for post-human companies before we've figured out who's managing the humans.Maybe we should court martial everyone. What a difference a week makes. Five Takeaways•       No Good Guys: Keith Teare's editorial puts Sam Altman, Dario Amodei, and Pete Hegseth in the same room—and finds all three guilty of bad leadership. Amodei is ideologically driven, Altman is commercially driven, and Hegseth is just doing his job. None of them is asking the big questions about AI policy. The real culprit may be the invisible AI czar, David Sacks.•       Altman Said One Thing, Then Did Another: Last week Altman publicly supported Amodei's position on surveillance and autonomous weapons. This week he signed a contract with the Department of War. The contract uses “no unlawful use” language—which, as Amodei's leaked memo points out, effectively means there is no law.•       The US Used Claude in Iran Anyway: Despite the very public dispute between Anthropic and the government, the US military used Claude in the Iran operation. The government doesn't need your permission to use your product. It just needs an API key and a credit card.•       China Has a Plan. America Has Theater: Om Malik's “Post of the Week” contrasts China's published five-year AI strategy—built on open-source software and bottom-up adoption—with America's complete absence of AI policy. The Chinese approach is more inclusive and practical than anything coming out of Washington or Silicon Valley.•       The Future Company Has Nine Employees: Startup of the week Jobright hit $5 million in annual recurring revenue with just nine people. Keith's own company, SignalRank, has four people and is going public. The implication: the companies of the future will be run mostly by software agents, not humans. We're heading for post-human companies. About the GuestKeith Teare is the publisher of That Was The Week, founder and CEO of SignalRank, and a recurring sparring partner on Keen On America. A serial entrepreneur and investor, he is the co-founder of TechCrunch and RealNames. He joins the show every Saturday for the weekly tech roundup.ReferencesEssays, posts, and interviews referenced:•       Keith Teare, “No Good Guys” — That Was The Week editorial•       Om Malik, “The Great AI Game versus AI Theater” — Post of the Week•       Ross Douthat, “If AI Is a Weapon, Who Should Control It?” — New York Times•       Ben Thompson, Stratechery — on “no unlawful use” and the absence of international law•       Paul Krugman on the economics of technological change — technology, jobs, wages, and monopolies•       Tim O'Reilly, “How We Bet Against the Bitter Lesson” — skills and the future knowledge economy•       Yascha Mounk and Danielle Allen on participatory democracy and AI governance•       Previous Keen On episodes: Tom Wells on the Kissinger tapes; Michael Ellsberg on Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers•       Startup of the Week: Jobright — $5M ARR with nine employeesAbout Keen On AmericaNobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen. In Keen On America, Andrew brings his pointed Transatlantic wit to making sense of the United States—hosting daily interviews about the history and future of this now venerable Republic. With nearly 2,800 episodes since the show launched on TechCrunch in 2010, Keen On America is the most prolific intellectual interview show in the history of podcasting.WebsiteSubstackYouTubeApple PodcastsSpotify Chapters:(00:00) - Introduction: What a difference a week makes (01:14) - “No Good Guys”: Keith's editorial and Om Malik's wake-up call (02:30) - Amodei, Altman, Hegseth: three self-interested players (04:02) - How the Iran invasion changed the AI debate (05:28) - “No unlawful use”: a meaningless phrase in a lawless context (06:50) - The US used Claude in Iran despite the Anthropic dispute (08:15) - Naughty boys in the playground: spinning vs. leadership (09:31) - Bobby Kenn...

Yascha Mounk and Danielle Allen discuss democratic backsliding. Danielle Allen is the James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University. She is also Director of the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation at the Harvard Kennedy School and Director of the Democratic Knowledge Project, a research lab focused on civic education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.  In this week's conversation, Yascha Mounk and Danielle Allen discuss why the liberal worldview of the 1990s and 2000s has collapsed, how "power-sharing liberalism" can address the failures of technocratic governance, and whether participatory democracy risks empowering the professional managerial class at the expense of ordinary citizens. If you have not yet signed up for our podcast, please do so now by following ⁠this link on your phone⁠. Email: leonora.barclay@persuasion.community Podcast production by Jack Shields and Leonora Barclay. Connect with us! ⁠Spotify⁠ | ⁠Apple⁠ | ⁠Google⁠ X: ⁠@Yascha_Mounk⁠ & ⁠@JoinPersuasion⁠ YouTube: ⁠Yascha Mounk⁠, ⁠Persuasion⁠ LinkedIn: ⁠Persuasion Community Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There's a movement in Massachusetts to introduce a new type of election: "all-party primaries". The idea is simple: let everyone run in the primary elections together for any given race, regardless of party, and the best candidates will come out on top. This potential ballot measure is being pushed by the "Coalition for Healthy Democracy", which says such elections will make elections more competitive and transparent. Harvard University professor and former gubernatorial candidate Danielle Allen discusses their efforts with Nichole on this week's show.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Higher education is in crisis. Trust in universities is low, tuition prices are out of reach for many Americans, and there are accusations of ideological bias on campus. Harvard University's democracy expert Danielle Allen says this crisis is not just an educational problem, it threatens our entire country. Allen said she was excited to hear Trump calling for a new compact between the government and higher ed - but she has notes. This week on Say More, opinion page editor Jim Dao asks Allen about the roots of her interest in democracy and her answer takes us from ancient Greece to Cornel West's Princeton office. Email us at saymore@globe.com.

In this episode, the girls discuss the new season format with focusing on engaging conversations about literature without spoilers. They dive into Danielle Allen's fab summer romance Plus Size Player, exploring its themes of plus size representation, character dynamics, and the importance of plot twists. The girls share their excitement for future works and the significance of humor and relatability in storytelling. In this engaging conversation, they delve into the themes of romance, relationships, and the complexities of dating in the modern world. Exploring the allure of billionaire boyfriends, the tension of secret dating, and the dynamics of workplace romance. The discussion also touches on the importance of supportive friendships, the impact of jealousy, and the representation of plus-size women in literature. With humor and insight, they reflect on the characters and plot of a recent book, highlighting the significance of self-confidence and the power of love.Plus Size Player

Y. M. Nelson shares her best books, movies, and TV that celebrate the nerdy and the romantic. She delves into superhero, sci-fi, fantasy, and romance genres to pick the best reads, listens and watches of the year.Best Books of 2025Curvy Girl SummerLosing SightChildren of Blood and BoneCan't Get EnoughOnly for the WeekMy release for 2025: The Accidental ProposalBest Movies of 2025SinnersSavvy Sheldon Feels Good as HellSupermanThe Fantastic Four: First StepsThunderbolts*Honorable Mention: Captain America: Brave New WorldBest Nerdy TV showsStar Trek Discovery, S5Superman & Lois, S3The ResidenceIronheartEyes of WakandaThe PenguinShow us some love with a text!Support the show#booktube #movietube⚠ *Note: some links to book recommendations are affiliate links. This means I receive a small commission when you buy. This does not affect the price you pay.

Danielle Allen, the James Bryant Conant University Professor and the Director of the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University, has a new book, Justice by Means of Democracy, that explores the foundational understanding of how humans best flourish, in particular in regard to the governmental system under which they live. Allen, author of many books that focus on questions of democracy and justice, also works on democratic reform and renovation at Partners in Democracy. Thus, Dr. Allen integrates both scholarship and democratic activism into her work as an academic and as an activist. Justice by Means of Democracy examines these different threads as well; what is justice, and how does democracy work towards achieving justice? And what is the role of the citizen in these pursuits? Allen opens up her discussion weaving together a number of threads, since politics, economics, civic engagement, and citizenship are all part of the whole when we consider both justice and democracy. Growing out of the ideal that democracy is a very good system for individuals to move forward together, and to achieve their full flourishing, complexities arise from issues like inequality, inequity, and how liberty is structured within the governmental system. Part of Allen's framing comes from John Rawl's Theory of Justice and his connection of justice and democracy—but she is pushing further in terms of the role of power and thinking about power and power sharing within democracies and democratic institutions. Justice by Means of Democracy also wrestles with the abstract ideas of negative and positive liberty, and what this actually means in practice, particularly in the United States. In fact, the book thinks about what it means to be a citizen in a democracy, and what that requires from each individual. Allen explained in our conversation that while we often discuss “work/life balance” in terms of our personal and professional lives, what we should be discussing and focusing on is our “work-life civic balance” – since being civically involved takes time, takes effort, but is required for democracy to function and to remain intact. We are living through some of the breakages within our democratic systems of government, not just in the United States, but in other democracies as well. And part of the reason for these breakages is the failure of democratic practice by the people themselves. Allen's own activism is focused on restoring and reinvigorating democratic practice, so that citizens become more used to the “habit” of democracy and civic engagement. Lilly J. Goren is a professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-editor of The Politics of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (University Press of Kansas, 2022), as well as co-editor of the award winning book,Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/public-policy

Danielle Allen, the James Bryant Conant University Professor and the Director of the Edmond and Lily Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University, has a new book, Justice by Means of Democracy, that explores the foundational understanding of how humans best flourish, in particular in regard to the governmental system under which they live. Allen, author of many books that focus on questions of democracy and justice, also works on democratic reform and renovation at Partners in Democracy. Thus, Dr. Allen integrates both scholarship and democratic activism into her work as an academic and as an activist. Justice by Means of Democracy examines these different threads as well; what is justice, and how does democracy work towards achieving justice? And what is the role of the citizen in these pursuits? Allen opens up her discussion weaving together a number of threads, since politics, economics, civic engagement, and citizenship are all part of the whole when we consider both justice and democracy. Growing out of the ideal that democracy is a very good system for individuals to move forward together, and to achieve their full flourishing, complexities arise from issues like inequality, inequity, and how liberty is structured within the governmental system. Part of Allen's framing comes from John Rawl's Theory of Justice and his connection of justice and democracy—but she is pushing further in terms of the role of power and thinking about power and power sharing within democracies and democratic institutions. Justice by Means of Democracy also wrestles with the abstract ideas of negative and positive liberty, and what this actually means in practice, particularly in the United States. In fact, the book thinks about what it means to be a citizen in a democracy, and what that requires from each individual. Allen explained in our conversation that while we often discuss “work/life balance” in terms of our personal and professional lives, what we should be discussing and focusing on is our “work-life civic balance” – since being civically involved takes time, takes effort, but is required for democracy to function and to remain intact. We are living through some of the breakages within our democratic systems of government, not just in the United States, but in other democracies as well. And part of the reason for these breakages is the failure of democratic practice by the people themselves. Allen's own activism is focused on restoring and reinvigorating democratic practice, so that citizens become more used to the “habit” of democracy and civic engagement. Lilly J. Goren is a professor of political science at Carroll University in Waukesha, WI. She is co-editor of The Politics of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (University Press of Kansas, 2022), as well as co-editor of the award winning book,Women and the White House: Gender, Popular Culture, and Presidential Politics Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/law

Malka Older makes a life at the crossroads of our existing and future worlds. Between research into the sociology of organizations, on-the-ground work in humanitarian aid and disaster risk reduction, and acclaimed writing of speculative and science fiction, Older brilliantly, beautifully, uncommonly lives the great paradox in front of us all: to hold at once the two truths of lived experience and imagined future. Origins Podcast WebsiteFlourishing Commons NewsletterShow Notes:the immigrant sensibility (05:00)belonging (07:20)exile (09:00)Danielle Allen's theory of justice (15:00)A Paradise Built in Hellby Rebecca Solnit (16:00)Malka's work in the international space (16:20)Global Voices (19:15)Where are you REALLY from? (19:40) The Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion (20:30)'Great Asking' (22:30)Positionality (23:00)Mu - unask the question (23:20)the opportunity in disaster (27:10)2004 Boxing Day Indian Ocean Tsunami (31:00)psychological distance (34:40)Malka's book ...And Other Disasters(35:30)the importance of improvisation (43:00)David Whyte - the conversational nature of reality (46:30)Malka's book Infomocracy (49:00)the adjacent possible (53:45)The Crisis of Narration by Byung-Chul Han (59:15)The Sociological Imaginationby C Wright Mills (59:30)what does it mean to flourish? (59:45)the generative narrative of our time (01:08:30)Lightning round (01:02:00)Book: The Lord of the RingsPassion: Hearing a new languageHeart sing: Global VoicesScrewed up: relationshipFind Malka online:WikipediaArizona State ProfileLinkedInLogo artwork by Cristina GonzalezMusic by swelo on all streaming platforms or @swelomusic on social media

Hey ya'll! Check out this week's review, Curvy Girl Summer by Danielle Allen. Tune in for the fun! To find this book, visit: https://www.authordanielleallen.com/the-curve-series/Follow us on:Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/whatureadinpodcast/⁠ TikTok: ⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@whatureadinpodcast⁠Youtube: ⁠https://youtube.com/channel/UChpqseCdr7zn5MT001AKElw⁠ Into/Outro Music by: JCHave some requests or recommendations, visit ⁠https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeEhKqujuxqe0VkIBDm_D5JTwJsR-XiBvPC610bo_bn5OpylA/viewform?usp=sf_link⁠ to submit. 

Scientific Sense ® by Gill Eapen: Prof. Danielle Allen is Professor of political philosophy, ethics, and public policy. at Harvard University. She is a professor of political philosophy, ethics, and public policy. As a scholar, she currently concentrates on the Democratic Knowledge Project and on the Democracy Renovation Project. Her latest book is Justice By Means Of Democracy.Please subscribe to this channel:https://www.youtube.com/c/ScientificSense?sub_confirmation=1

On this episode of Buzzing About Romance, Becky is joined by Leah, Jenni and Lindsey to review Curvy Girl Summer by Danielle Allen. 

Danielle AllenPublic Speaker, Pilot, Adventurer- Dare to be curiousI'm Danielle Allen—pilot, public speaker, and adventurer—and I've built my life around one question:What would happen if we followed our curiosities all the way through?That question has taken me from teaching English in Palestine… to responding to burning buildings as a firefighter-paramedic… to flying aircraft cross-country… to now helping build the future of energy as a nuclear engineering student and podcast host.My path isn't traditional—but it's intentional. I believe we can design our lives with the same boldness we use to design rockets, reactors, or rescue systems. And I share my story to help others realize that reinvention is not only possible, but necessary for progress.I currently host Naked Nuclear, a podcast demystifying nuclear energy for everyday listeners—from students and policy makers to pilots and entrepreneurs. But my guest appearances are about more than just fission and physics—they're about what it takes to change careers midstream, how to face fear with curiosity, and what I've learned from walking (and flying) the edges of risk, science, and self-development. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The perfect follow up to our Summer of Yes discussion is a review of a spicy summer read. For the Clue In Segment, Chidinma shares the upcoming virtual event with author Danielle Allen in collaboration with the She Well Read Podcast hosts on August 21st. It a Vibe Check episode and so, Chidinma is joined by Book related Content Creator, Chinwendu for a deep dive into the last installment of the Skyland Series - Can't Get Enough by Kennedy Ryan. The two discuss themes from the book including Hendrix and Marverick's relationship, varying forms of womanhood and choice, sisterhood, caring for a elderly family member and answer the question "did Hendrix break girl code?" --- Connect with the "But What Do I Know?" Podcast: Instagram Community: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@BWDIKPodcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Subscribe to our newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.bwdikpodcast.com/⁠⁠⁠ Register for our virtual event with Author , Danielle Allen: ⁠⁠ In Conversation With Danielle Allen⁠⁠ ---: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Connect with Chinwendu: Instagram: @wendureads --- Episode Credits: BWDIK Podcast Theme Music: Produced By Sonix Content Production: In The Know Media Audio Editing and Production: Morgane Chambrin Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Leah sits down with author Danielle Allen to talk about her author journey and all things Plus Size Player. 

This episode is for the girlies who need an extra push to get OUTSIDE and enjoy the summer on their own terms. For the Clue In Segment, Chidinma shares the upcoming virtual event with Author, Danielle Allen in partnership with the Hosts of She Well Read Podcast and Kwn's new R&B album, With All Due Respect as the soundtrack to a sexy summer. Licensed Therapist and Host of the Black Girl Burnout Podcast, Kelley Bonner to discuss carving out radical ease even when "locking in", recognizing burnout symptoms and creating the perfect list for a summer of yes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Zachary Ugolnik has for years been charting a new path that refuses the tired and inanimate narrative about the separateness of science and spirituality, reason and religion. In his life we find rich possibility when those old illusory dichotomies are discarded, and from that possibility perhaps new wisdom for creating a society full of care and flourishing, one that embraces our inherent needfulness and borrows from theology, ecology, and the social sciences. Origins Podcast WebsiteFlourishing Commons NewsletterShow Notes:locate shared spaces of curiosity across disciplines (11:50)Émile Durkheim and collective effervescence (13:45)Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University (14:10 and 16:20)through lines between religion and social science (13:45)Victor and Edith Turner  communitas (15:00)Simone Weil decreation (18:30)re-membering (22:00)Zach's book: The Collective Self (18:30)Theater of War (24:00)Byzantine iconography and perspective (26:00)Picasso "Le Taureau" (26:20)The Social Science of Caregiving (27:30)Flourishing Knowledge Commons (27:45)Margaret Levi communities of fate (27:50)"Mobilizing in the Interest of Others" by Levi and Ugolnik (30:00)Buddhism and interdependence (31:50)Collective action problems (34:40)flourishing systems (37:30)Ilya Prigogine and dissipative structures (39:30)Danielle Allen (42:15)philanthropy (44:30)Strother School of Radical Attention (52:30)Andrei Rublev (52:50)Daniel Kahneman (53:50)Syriac term Iḥidāyā (55:00)Lightning Round (57:30):Book: The Way of the Pilgrimand The Narrow Road to the Deep North and Other Travel Sketches by Matsuo BashōPassion: travelHeart sing: swimming with my kidsScrewed up: eulogy Find Zach online:https://zacharyugolnik.com/Logo artwork by Cristina GonzalezMusic by swelo on all streaming platforms or @swelomusic on social media

Hey well read baddies! It's the last bonus episode before we kick off rewind episodes—and we've got updates galore. We're revealing our Season 6 book pick (Happy Land by Dolen Perkins-Valdez—our first historical fiction!), and announcing a special virtual book club collab with Chid from the But What Do I Know? podcast featuring author Danielle Allen. In Coffee Break, we're talking Cowboy Carter tour chaos, Love Island drama, and why some of y'all need to let us have fun. Plus: audiobook recs, upcoming Substack drops, and a reminder to leave us a voice note. New season starts August 28—tap in! Register for our virtual event with the BWDIK Podcast and Author Danielle Allen: https://forms.gle/kgCZzezHCRvLodes9 Partnership Deck- https://www.canva.com/design/DAEYH_BO5sw/RyRc3-E_Wh8Yfsj45LotoA/edit?utm_content=DAEYH_BO5sw&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=sharebutton We can't wait to hear from you! :) Please send any questions or comments about this episode to shewellread@gmail.com or use the form at the bottom of the SWR Podcast page: https://www.shewellread.com/contact OR leave us a Voice Note at https://www.speakpipe.com/shewellread‬ Follow SHE WELL READ! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shewellread/ TikTok: https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMeDCLdTX/ Threads: https://www.threads.net/@shewellread Substack- https://substack.com/@shewellread Bookum- https://app.bookumapp.com/clubs/668ad565858c97a7faafafb1 Bookshop Storefront- https://bookshop.org/shop/shewellread More links including discount codes: https://bio.site/shewellread Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Danielle Allen is the author of 55 books, including the new release Plus Size Player, part of the Curve series alongside Curvy Girl Summer, and Big Girl Blitz. And the player, as you'll find out, is the heroine.The trilogy focuses on three best friends, and so we talk about friendship, loyalty, and about centering fat Black women as romance heroines. Danielle has also written contemporaries inspired by Poe stories, so of course we talk about interpreting Poe as well.You can find Danielle Allen at her website, AuthorDanielleAllen.com, and on her Patreon, Curvy Girl Confessions. You can also follow her on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and BlueSky.Her cover artist is Keo Majoy. …A special invitation: free samples of our bonus content!Inspired by other Patreon folks, including Chris DeRosa at Fixing Famous People, I've made some of the Patreon content free so you can sample what we've got.Do you want to do a crossword puzzle from the May 1995 issue of RT? The crossword puzzle is available for free on Patreon right now!Would you like to read an issue of RT Magazine? The December 1997 issue is now available for your perusal.Or would you like to try one of our bonus episodes? Join Amanda and me as we look back at our 2024 predictions about romance and publishing.This collection of special previews is available now to all listeners, and there's a link in the show notes to dive in. And if you like our free samples, join us in the Patreon community where there's bonus content and more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Danielle Allen is the author of 55 books, including the new release Plus Size Player, part of the Curve series alongside Curvy Girl Summer, and Big Girl Blitz. And the player, as you'll find out, is the heroine.The trilogy focuses on three best friends, and so we talk about friendship, loyalty, and about centering fat Black women as romance heroines. Danielle has also written contemporaries inspired by Poe stories, so of course we talk about interpreting Poe as well.You can find Danielle Allen at her website, AuthorDanielleAllen.com, and on her Patreon, Curvy Girl Confessions. You can also follow her on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and BlueSky.Her cover artist is Keo Majoy. …A special invitation: free samples of our bonus content!Inspired by other Patreon folks, including Chris DeRosa at Fixing Famous People, I've made some of the Patreon content free so you can sample what we've got.Do you want to do a crossword puzzle from the May 1995 issue of RT? The crossword puzzle is available for free on Patreon right now!Would you like to read an issue of RT Magazine? The December 1997 issue is now available for your perusal.Or would you like to try one of our bonus episodes? Join Amanda and me as we look back at our 2024 predictions about romance and publishing.This collection of special previews is available now to all listeners, and there's a link in the show notes to dive in. And if you like our free samples, join us in the Patreon community where there's bonus content and more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Declaration of Independence is one of the most iconic documents in United States history. But what do we really know about how it came to be? In our most recent episode, historian Emily Sneff helped us explore the Declaration through your questions–questions that revealed just how complex, living, and contested this document still is. So in today's Revisited episode, we take a listen to the podcast that Emily helped to produce back in 2017: Episode 141: A Declaration in Draft. Originally part of the Omohundro Institute's Doing History: To the Revolution! Series, this episode features three distinguished scholars: Danielle Allen, Patrick Spero, and Peter Onuf, Together, these scholars reveal that many hands and minds shaped the Declaration of Independence. They also help us dive into some of the document's contradictions around slavery and equality. Emily's Website  Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/415 RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES

The Declaration of Independence is one of the most iconic documents in United States history. But what do we really know about how it came to be? In our most recent episode, historian Emily Sneff helped us explore the Declaration through your questions–questions that revealed just how complex, living, and contested this document still is. So in today's Revisited episode, we take a listen to the podcast that Emily helped to produce back in 2017: Episode 141: A Declaration in Draft. Originally part of the Omohundro Institute's Doing History: To the Revolution! Series, this episode features three distinguished scholars: Danielle Allen, Patrick Spero, and Peter Onuf, Together, these scholars reveal that many hands and minds shaped the Declaration of Independence. They also help us dive into some of the document's contradictions around slavery and equality. Emily's Website Show Notes: https://www.benfranklinsworld.com/415 RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODES

This week, it’s a conversation on the democracy question and the embattled fate of our own, beset as it is from within. Philosopher-historian Danielle Allen is our guest examiner of the cranky American condition. It ...

It's time for Part 2 of our 2025 reading preview! We invited some friends of the pod to chat about the books they're most excited to pick up this year!    Lauren Puckett-Pope's Picks - Katabasis by R. F. Kuang (Out August 26), Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil by V. E. Schwab   Kristen L. Berry's Picks - Greenwich by Kate Broad (Out July 22), It's Different This Time by Joss Richard (Out September 30). Her Novel, We Don't Talk about Carol is out now!   Morgan Pager's Picks - My Train Leaves at Three by Natalie Guerrero (Out July 15), Along Came Amor by Alexis Daria. Her Book The Art of Vanishing is out July 1!   Clémence Michallon's Picks - El Dorado Drive by Megan Abbott, Kill Your Darlings by Peter Swanson. Her Book Our Last Resort is out July 8!    Nnenna Odeluga's Picks - Plus Size Player by Danielle Allen, The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy (Out September 16)   Becca's Picks - Park Avenue by Renée Ahdieh, The Academy by Elin Hilderbrand and Shelby Cunningham (Out September 2)    Olivia's Picks - What Kind of Paradise by Janelle Brown, The Compound by Aisling Rawle (Out June 24)   Obsessions Olivia - Her Paper Palace Playlist Becca - Seen Scalp Restore Serum   What we read this week Becca - It's A Love Story by Annabel Monaghan Olivia - We Don't Talk About Carol by Kristen L. Berry   June Book Club Pick - All the Other Mothers Hate Me by Sarah Harman July Book Club Pick - Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid  Have thoughts about these books you want to share? Call in at 843-405-3157 or email us a voice memo at badonpaperpodcast@gmail.com)   Sponsors Wayfair - Head to Wayfair.com to shop a huge outdoor selection. Better Help - Get 10% off their first month at BetterHelp.com/BADONPAPER.  Cozy Earth - Go to cozyearth.com and use code BOP for 40% Off.    Join our Facebook group for amazing book recs & more!  Buy our Merch! Join our Geneva! Order Olivia's Book, Such a Bad Influence! Subscribe to Olivia's Newsletter! Order Becca's Book, The Christmas Orphans Club! Subscribe to Becca's Newsletter!  Follow us on Instagram @badonpaperpodcast. Follow Olivia on Instagram @oliviamuenter and Becca @beccamfreeman.  

If you're looking for a podcast episode that feels like a "pick me up" that is still real enough to exclude the toxic positivity, THIS IS IT. For Our Clue In Segment, Chidinma shares her current reading list including Danielle Allen's Plus Size Players . For the Main Segment, Chidinma is joined by the Founder of Silkenn and Host of the Boss Babe Reset Podcast, Ericka Parker. The two discuss reclaiming what it means to be a "boss babe", trial and errors when building a business, how to know if entrepreneurship is for you, failures and successes in side hustles and the importance of hiring a team that is capable of executing the vision for the business. Connect with the "But What Do I Know?" Podcast: Instagram Community: ⁠⁠⁠@BWDIKPodcast⁠⁠⁠ Enter our collaborative Giveaway with Cheekbone Beauty: ⁠@BWDIKPodcast⁠ Subscribe to our newsletter: ⁠https://www.bwdikpodcast.com/⁠ --- Connect with Ericka Parker: Listen to the Podcast: Boss Babe Reset Podcast Follow the launch of Silkenn: ⁠https://www.silkennco.com/ Ericka Parker's IG: ⁠@theeerickanicole --- Episode Credits: BWDIK Podcast Theme Music: Produced By Sonix Content Production: In The Know Media Audio Editing and Production: Morgane Chambrin Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tonight on The Last Word: Republicans scramble over cuts in Donald Trump's budget bill. Also, Vladimir Putin hosts China's Xi Jinping and North Korea generals at a military parade. Plus, an anti-democracy blogger gains influence in the Trump White House. And Pope Francis spoke forcefully for migrants' humanity. Rep. Eric Swalwell, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman (ret.), Danielle Allen, and Bishop Mark Seitz join Ali Velshi.

https://tlh.villagesquare.us/event/america-fourth/Riffing along with our civic hero Dr. Danielle Allen, you have to start with basic agreements that are foundational (nonviolence as a basic norm, a supermajority for constitutional democracy, and full inclusion for all citizens). We're also wondering if the secret to a healthy America is to… wait for it… put “America Fourth!” Perhaps too much of our lives are now wrapped up in this life or death, us v. them struggle for us to be happy people. According to political scientist Eitan Hersh, this is making us insufferable “political hobbyists” who need to get a life? What if we can rediscover other higher loves — faith, family, art, travel, Star Wars trivia, whatever floats your particular boat. And in finding our loves again, maybe we even find each other? Facilitated by Pastor Latricia Scriven of St. Paul's United Methodist Church — God Squad is on it. Learn more about the program and meet the God Squad here. The Village Square is a proud member of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts that examines what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it. Funding for this podcast was provided through a grant from Florida Humanities with funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of Florida Humanities or the National Endowment for the Humanities.

 Join Jen, Carla, and me Y. M. Nelson as we recommend romance books that are perfect for a beach vacation. These reads range from sweet to red hot and everything in between. Find your next book summer fling here. Some Books we recommend:Forrest for the Trees by Kilby BladesOnly Mostly Dead by AlliTempleJewel Me Twice by Charish ReidOnly for the Week by Natasha BishopWe even name drop Danielle Allen and shamlessly plug RRAW and Black Romance Book Fest!See all of Carla Luna's books at https://www.carlalunabooks.com/Schedule a session with Jen Graybeal at https://jengraybeal.comFind most of these books we recommend at https://bookshop.org/lists/books-from-the-nerdy-romantics-podcast/edit * Show us some love with a text!Support the show#booktube #movietube⚠ *Note: some links to book recommendations are affiliate links. This means I receive a small commission when you buy. This does not affect the price you pay.

NOTE: This is a long, unabridged episode. So get some snacks! and settle in!Romance in Colour is back this week with a legend! Vivian Award winner and author of over thirty romances, Reese Ryan. A master of the craft, Reese drops some jewels about writing romance, complex storytelling and the business of romance publishing.About Reese:Award-winning author Reese Ryan writes sexy, emotional, “grown folks” romantic fiction. Her characters find love while navigating career crises and family drama. The two-time recipient of the Donna Hill Breakout Author Award is an advocate for the romance genre and diversity in fiction. Reese's books have been featured on Entertainment Weekly, BuzzFeed, and BookRiot. Follow Reese's social media and links on her website:ReeseRyan.comHeart Topics is all about engagements! From Normani to former Love is Blind cast members, love is in the air!In Watching Romance, we recap the latest offerings from Lifetime, Tyler Perry, and Tati gives us a run down of Beyond the Gates.In Reading Romance, Tati talks upcoming Black Romance Book Fest, events and some dope Danielle Allen books that are soon to come.Follow Romance in Colour on Social MediaIG ⁠⁠@RomanceInColour⁠⁠Twitter: ⁠⁠@RomanceNColour ⁠⁠Facebook Groups: ⁠⁠www.facebook.com/groups/RomanceinColour⁠⁠Follow Yakini on her Instagram ⁠@OurNycHome⁠Follow Tati Richardson on social media and pick up her books here, ⁠⁠here⁠

Danielle Allen and Mark Fagan say that when tested, thoughtfully deployed, and regulated AI actually can help governments serve citizens better. Sure, there is no shortage of horror stories these days about the intersection of AI and government—from a municipal chatbot that told restaurant owners it was OK to serve food that had been gnawed by rodents to artificial intelligence police tools that misidentify suspects through faulty facial recognition. And now the Trump administration and Elon Musk's so-called Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE say they are fast-tracking the use of AI to root out government waste and fraud, while making public virtually no details about what tools they are using or how they'll be deployed. But Allen and Fagan, say that while careless deployment creates risks like opening security holes, exacerbating inefficiencies, and automating flawed decision-making, AI done the right way can help administrators and policymakers make better and smarter decisions, and can make governments more accessible and responsive to the citizens they serve. They also say we need to reorient our thinking from AI being a replacement for human judgement to a partnership model, where each brings its strengths to the table. Danielle Allen is an HKS professor and the founder of the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation. Mark Fagan is a lecturer in public policy and faculty chair of the Delivering Public Services section of the Executive Education Program at HKS. They join PolicyCast host Ralph Ranalli to explain the guidelines, guardrails, and principles that can help government get AI right. Policy Recommendations:Danielle Allen's Policy Recommendations:* Support the "people's bid" for TikTok and generally promote an alternative, pro-social model for social media platforms.* Establish AI offices in state governments: Create offices that use AI to enhance openness, accountability, and transparency in government.Mark Fagan's Policy Recommendations:* Implement "sandbox" spaces for regulatory experimentation that allow organizations to test different policy ideas in a controlled environment to see what works.* Adopt a risk-based regulatory approach similar to the EU that categorize AI regulations based on risk levels, with clear guidelines on high-risk activities where AI use is prohibited versus those where experimentation is allowed. Danielle Allen is the James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University. She is a professor of political philosophy, ethics, and public policy and director of the Democratic Knowledge Project and of the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation. She is also a seasoned nonprofit leader, democracy advocate, national voice on AI and tech ethics, and author. A past chair of the Mellon Foundation and Pulitzer Prize Board, and former dean of humanities at the University of Chicago, she is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and American Philosophical Society. Her many books include the widely acclaimed Talking to Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship Since Brown v Board of Education;  Our Declaration: a reading of the Declaration of Independence in defense of equality; Cuz: The Life and Times of Michael A.; Democracy in the Time of Coronavirus; and Justice by Means of Democracy. She writes a column on constitutional democracy for the Washington Post. Outside the University, she is a co-chair for the Our Common Purpose Commission and Founder and President for Partners in Democracy, where she advocates for democracy reform to create greater voice and access in our democracy, and to drive progress towards a new social contract that serves and includes us all. She holds Ph.Ds from Harvard University in government and from King's College, University of Cambridge, in classics; master's degrees from Harvard University in government and King's College, University of Cambridge in classics; and an AB from Princeton in classics.Mark Fagan is a lecturer in public policy and former senior fellow at the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at Harvard Kennedy School. He teaches Operations Management, Service Delivery via Systems Thinking and Supply Chain Management, and Policy Design and Delivery in the degree program. In executive education, he is the faculty chair for Delivering Public Services: Efficiency, Equity and Quality. In another program, he teaches strategy and cross boundary collaboration. The focus of his research is on the role of regulation in competitive markets. He is presently spearheading an initiative at the Taubman Center for State and Local Government that examines the policy and associated regulatory impacts of autonomous vehicles. He leads efforts to catalyze policy making through Autonomous Vehicle Policy Scrums, cross sector policy design sessions hosted by governments from Boston to Buenos Aries to Toronto. Fagan earned a Masters Degree in City and Regional Planning at Harvard University and a BA at Bucknell University.Ralph Ranalli of the HKS Office of Communications and Public Affairs is the host, producer, and editor of HKS PolicyCast. A former journalist, public television producer, and entrepreneur, he holds an BA in political science from UCLA and a master's in journalism from Columbia University.Scheduling and logistical support for PolicyCast is provided by Lilian Wainaina. Design and graphics support is provided by Laura King and the OCPA Design Team. Web design and social media promotion support is provided by Catherine Santrock and Natalie Montaner of the OCPA Digital Team. Editorial support is provided by Nora Delaney and Robert O'Neill of the OCPA Editorial Team.

Y'all we are BACK for a new season and with a WHOLE TEAM ?!!  New year, refined pod and this episode, Host Chidinma A is recapping the pod break, discussing building a team for podcast and a new community for the podcast. For the Clue In Segment, Chidinma shares the book “Curvy Girl Summer” by Danielle Allen and her recent binge of romance novels. The music project of the week is Masego's self titled album.  For the Main Segment, it's a solo conversation and Chidinma is reflecting on 2024 and Q1, having a live journaling session and setting intentions for the rest of the year. This episode is really giving life chat  Connect with the "But What Do I Know?" Podcast: Instagram: @BWDIKPodcast Watch the latest visual episode on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@BWDIKPodcast Join the Podcast community on Discord: https://discord.gg/9yNhbtBC --- Episode Credits: BWDIK Podcast Theme Music: Produced By Sonix Content Production: In The Know Media Audio Editing and Production: Morgane Chambrin Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

(Given that yesterday was the 4 year anniversary of Jan. 6, 2021, an attempted violent disruption of the peaceful transfer of power, one of our nation's most cherished traditions, we thought it would be a good time to refresh our conversation with Prof. Danielle Allen who has been ensconced in the work of renovating our democratic institutions.)   Our democracy is brittle. Many would say our Constitutional Republic is in trouble. So what kind of work can we do on "actually renovating our institutions"?   We were fortunate to be joined by Dr. Danielle Allen, a democracy advocate, Harvard professor and nonprofit leader who's doing something about it. We talked about how to maintain a loving spirit when faced with "a lot of bleeps"; Danielle's fascinating family legacy and her "obsession" with democracy; what the heck a eudaemonist democratic pragmatist is; the ways the 5 freedoms articulated in the 1st Amendment are under threat; the merits of ranked choice voting, expanding the House of Representatives and other democratic renovations; the imperative of developing a civic portfolio; and how to "not let our differences take our humanity hostage."   Prof. Danielle Allen is James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University. She is a professor of political philosophy, ethics, and public policy and director of the Democratic Knowledge Project and of the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation. Outside the University, she is a co-chair for the Our Common Purpose Commission and Founder and President for Partners In Democracy, where she advocates for democracy reform to create greater voice and access in our democracy, and to drive progress towards a new social contract that serves and includes us all.   We're on YouTube!  https://www.youtube.com/@politicsandreligion   Talkin' Politics & Religion Without Killin' Each Other is part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts that examines what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.   We're on Patreon! Join the community:  https://www.patreon.com/politicsandreligion   It would mean so much if you could leave us a review:  https://ratethispodcast.com/goodfaithpolitics    Talkin' Politics & Religion Without Killin' Each Other is part of The Democracy Group, a network of podcasts that examines what's broken in our democracy and how we can work together to fix it.   Please support our sponsor Meza Wealth Management: www.mezawealth.com   Be sure to read Danielle's series in the Washington Post on How to Renovate American Democracy: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/01/31/danielle-allen-american-democracy-renovation-series/

Following the release of its issue on The University, SAPIR brought together leaders and experts from academia, philanthropy, and Jewish organizational life for a convening focused on identifying practical solutions to the serious challenges facing higher education. That gathering began with a panel discussion titled First Principles: The Purpose of the University, featuring Harvard University professor Danielle Allen and social psychologist and author, Jonathan Haidt. The conversation was moderated by Maimonides Fund Scholar-in-Residence Rabbi David Wolpe and explored why trust had diminished in institutions of higher education and what could be done to restore their values and faith in them. SAPIR Institute Director Chanan Weissman delivered opening remarks, a condensed version of which you will hear in this recording. This SAPIR Conversation was recorded live in New York City on December 16, 2024.

Flourishing is not a fixed state; it is an unfolding. In this time of rupture we need encounters with flourishing, to know it in our lived experiences individually and collectively. In this transformative event on December 12, 2024, Ryan McGranaghan, host of the Origins Podcast and founder of the Flourishing Salons, engaged in a moving conversation with four profound provocateurs and a wider community of artists, designers, engineers, scientists, educators, and contemplatives. The event was co-hosted by Flourishing Salons and the Cultural Programs of the National Academy of Sciences (CPNAS) DC Art and Science Evening Rendezvous (DASER).Origins Podcast WebsiteFlourishing Commons NewsletterShow Notes:Video of the event (link) and event page (link)Opening remarks - JD Talasek, Cultural Programs of the National Academy of Sciences (03:30)DC Art Science Evening Rendezvous (03:30)Ryan McGranaghan framing (05:50)Flourishing Salons (06:00)Rainer Maria Rilke "Let This Darkness Be a Bell Tower" (07:30)Elizabeth Alexander (09:00)James Suzman (09:40)Danielle Allen (09:40)John Paul Lederach and critical yeast (12:00)Audrey Tang (12:50)David Whyte (13:10)"Knowledge Commons and the Future of Democracy" (14:00)Simone Weil (18:00)American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting (19:00)'Flourishing Summits' (19:45)Susan Magsamen provocation (20:15)Julie Demuth provocation (34:00)Jennifer Wiseman provocation (45:00)Dan Jay provocation (56:15)Salon discussion (01:11:00)Find the guests online:Susan MagsamenJulie DemuthJennifer WisemanDan JayLogo artwork by Cristina GonzalezMusic by swelo on all streaming platforms or @swelomusic on social media

On Radio Boston today, we talk about the state of democracy with Danielle Allen, Harvard Professor, democracy activist and president of Partners in Democracy. 

In celebration of John Adams's 289th birthday, Jeffrey Rosen joins a discussion on Adams's legacy with Danielle Allen, the James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University, and Jane Kamensky, president and CEO of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Kurt Graham, president of the Adams Presidential Center, moderates. They explore the constitutional legacy of the Adams family—including John and Abigail Adams and John Quincy and Louisa Catherine Adams—and discuss the importance of resurrecting the Adams family's tradition of self-mastery and self-improvement to defend the American Idea. This conversation was originally aired at the Adams Presidential Center as part of the 2024 Adams Speaker Series.   Resources:  Jeffrey Rosen, The Pursuit of Happiness (2024)  Jane Kamensky, The Colonial Mosaic: American Women 1600-1760 (1998)  Danielle Allen, Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality (2014) Stay Connected and Learn More Questions or comments about the show? Email us at podcasts@constitutioncenter.org Continue the conversation by following us on social media @ConstitutionCtr. Sign up to receive Constitution Weekly, our email roundup of constitutional news and debate. Subscribe, rate, and review wherever you listen. Join us for an upcoming live program or watch recordings on YouTube. Support our important work. Donate

Natalie (Talia, as she goes by) Stroud has for years been studying the ways that our lives online show up in and shape our lives together. Her scholarship as her life are unexampled guides to the tumult, the challenges, and the opportunity presented by the advent and evolution of digital media. Origins Podcast WebsiteFlourishing Commons NewsletterShow Notes:Federal Communications Committee "Information Needs of Communities" (08:10)Kathleen Hall Jamieson (08:50)Center for Media Engagement (11:00)Niche News (12:00)Governing the Commonsby Elinor Ostrom (17:00)Understanding Knowledge As a Commonsby Hess and Ostrom (17:30)Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI by Yuval Noah Harari (17:40)'crisis discipline' (e.g., Michael Soulé) (18:00)Danielle Allen on relationality (20:00)New_ Public (22:20)Civic Signals (23:50 & 32:00)Talia's research with Meta around 2020 presidential election (26:00)Eli Pariser (34:00)Great Asking episode of Origins (35:00)the four building blocks of a healthy or flourishing digital community (37:30)what does it mean to flourish? (39:00)Umberto Eco and lists (42:20)trust (43:00)Martha Nussbaum (46:20)public imagination (51:00)Healing the Heart of Democracyby Parker Palmer (55:20)Lightning Round (55:40)Book: The Nature and Origins of Public Opinions by John Zaller Passion: business and marketing 'beach read' booksHeart Sing: election integrityScrewed up: reducing polarization in ways practical and scalableFind Talia online:UT Austin'Five-Cut Fridays' five-song music playlist series  Talia's playlistLogo artwork by Cristina GonzalezMusic by swelo on all streaming platforms or @swelomusic on social media

Danielle Allen thinks and writes about the institutions that hold society together. As a professor of public policy and political philosophy at Harvard, she's one of the most insightful voices on improving education and renovating democracy. Danielle and Adam discuss the current culture of college campuses, steps for promoting critical thinking and vigorous debate, and avenues for enriching the lives of students and the world that surrounds them. Transcripts for ReThinking are available at go.ted.com/RWAGscripts

Danielle Allen thinks and writes about the institutions that hold society together. As a professor of public policy and political philosophy at Harvard, she's one of the most insightful voices on improving education and renovating democracy. Danielle and Adam discuss the current culture of college campuses, steps for promoting critical thinking and vigorous debate, and avenues for enriching the lives of students and the world that surrounds them. Transcripts for ReThinking are available at go.ted.com/RWAGscripts

Summer may be winding down but Shelf Pleasure is keeping it hot with Curvy Girl Summer by Danielle Allen! Listen in to hear us rant about the importance of female friendships and learn just how we think apologies should be delivered. CW: explicit sex, fatphobia, fetishism, death of a loved one (off-page, recounted)

In this hilarious episode of Cocktails and Cliterature, Constance shakes things up with USA Today bestselling author, educator, and life coach Danielle Allen. The spotlight's on Danielle's latest hit, Curvy Girl Summer—a steamy, laugh-out-loud romance following Aaliyah, a curvy queen ditching her sexual dry spell as she hunts for love before the big 3-0. They chat about self-discovery, cringe-worthy dating fails, and why it's crucial to see curvy, natural-haired Black women stealing the spotlight in romance. Expect plenty of laughs, relatable tales, and a spicy round of ‘Sip or Strip' to keep things extra fun!If you loved this episode, don't forget to like, subscribe, and leave a review! We'd love to hear your thoughts. Also, check us out on YouTube for video content, and follow us on social media to stay updated on all things romance, books, and cocktails. Cheers to more spicy reads and fun chats!

Listen to our full, two-part series from 2023 on the history of civics education, and the current legal and ideological debates around social studies happening in across the country today.  Walking us through the past, present, and future of social studies and civic education are Danielle Allen, James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University, and Adam Laats, Historian and Professor of Teaching, Learning and Educational Leadership at Binghamton University.  We also hear from Louise Dube, Executive Director of iCivics and member of the Implementation Consortium at Educating for American Democracy, Justin Reich, Director at MIT Teaching Systems Lab and host of the TeachLab podcast, and CherylAnne Amendola,  Department Chair and teacher at Montclair Kimberly Academy and host of the podcast Teaching History Her Way.