Podcasts about edwin erle sparks professor

Elton John is not only "still standing," he is a living superlative, the ultimate record-breaking, award-winning survivor of the great era of pop and rock music that he helped to shape during his six decades in the music industry. Yet few of his numerous biographies and song guides take him as a historical subject worthy of scholarly study.In contrast, On Elton John: An Opinionated Guide (Oxford University Press, 2025) approaches the artist seriously and analytically, while still couched in a highly accessible style. Author Matthew Restall offers a new way to explore Sir Elton's career and music within the contexts of other artists and of sweeping shifts in popular culture during his lifetime. Each of the ten chapters is anchored to an Elton song, rooted in its pop culture history, and advances a clear argument, pairing him with figures ranging from Bernie (Bernie Taupin, his lyricist) to Bennie (of the Jets), from "frenemy" David Bowie to artists like Rod Stewart, Aretha Franklin, and Dua Lipa, from Diana (the princess) to Jesus (yes, that one). Restall contends that Sir Elton's career offers us a novel way to see and understand the last half century of pop music and culture history--whether we call the era that of the album, of rock, of postmodernism, or of something else. The yellow brick road of Sir Elton's career has been long, winding, and bumpy, but, as Restall argues, his success has come not just despite but because of those challenges. The artist's transformations from Reg to Elton to Sir Elton to Uncle Elton, from ugly duckling to bedazzled swan, from the world's biggest rock star to creator of the world's largest AIDS fundraising organization, from tabloid punching bag to pop royalty, have all served as survival strategies that illuminate the era he has thereby navigated. Matthew Restall teaches at the Pennsylvania State University, where he is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of History, Anthropology, and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and Director of Latin American Studies. Caleb Zakarin is editor at the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/british-studies

Elton John is not only "still standing," he is a living superlative, the ultimate record-breaking, award-winning survivor of the great era of pop and rock music that he helped to shape during his six decades in the music industry. Yet few of his numerous biographies and song guides take him as a historical subject worthy of scholarly study.In contrast, On Elton John: An Opinionated Guide (Oxford University Press, 2025) approaches the artist seriously and analytically, while still couched in a highly accessible style. Author Matthew Restall offers a new way to explore Sir Elton's career and music within the contexts of other artists and of sweeping shifts in popular culture during his lifetime. Each of the ten chapters is anchored to an Elton song, rooted in its pop culture history, and advances a clear argument, pairing him with figures ranging from Bernie (Bernie Taupin, his lyricist) to Bennie (of the Jets), from "frenemy" David Bowie to artists like Rod Stewart, Aretha Franklin, and Dua Lipa, from Diana (the princess) to Jesus (yes, that one). Restall contends that Sir Elton's career offers us a novel way to see and understand the last half century of pop music and culture history--whether we call the era that of the album, of rock, of postmodernism, or of something else. The yellow brick road of Sir Elton's career has been long, winding, and bumpy, but, as Restall argues, his success has come not just despite but because of those challenges. The artist's transformations from Reg to Elton to Sir Elton to Uncle Elton, from ugly duckling to bedazzled swan, from the world's biggest rock star to creator of the world's largest AIDS fundraising organization, from tabloid punching bag to pop royalty, have all served as survival strategies that illuminate the era he has thereby navigated. Matthew Restall teaches at the Pennsylvania State University, where he is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of History, Anthropology, and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and Director of Latin American Studies. Caleb Zakarin is editor at the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/performing-arts

Elton John is not only "still standing," he is a living superlative, the ultimate record-breaking, award-winning survivor of the great era of pop and rock music that he helped to shape during his six decades in the music industry. Yet few of his numerous biographies and song guides take him as a historical subject worthy of scholarly study.In contrast, On Elton John: An Opinionated Guide (Oxford University Press, 2025) approaches the artist seriously and analytically, while still couched in a highly accessible style. Author Matthew Restall offers a new way to explore Sir Elton's career and music within the contexts of other artists and of sweeping shifts in popular culture during his lifetime. Each of the ten chapters is anchored to an Elton song, rooted in its pop culture history, and advances a clear argument, pairing him with figures ranging from Bernie (Bernie Taupin, his lyricist) to Bennie (of the Jets), from "frenemy" David Bowie to artists like Rod Stewart, Aretha Franklin, and Dua Lipa, from Diana (the princess) to Jesus (yes, that one). Restall contends that Sir Elton's career offers us a novel way to see and understand the last half century of pop music and culture history--whether we call the era that of the album, of rock, of postmodernism, or of something else. The yellow brick road of Sir Elton's career has been long, winding, and bumpy, but, as Restall argues, his success has come not just despite but because of those challenges. The artist's transformations from Reg to Elton to Sir Elton to Uncle Elton, from ugly duckling to bedazzled swan, from the world's biggest rock star to creator of the world's largest AIDS fundraising organization, from tabloid punching bag to pop royalty, have all served as survival strategies that illuminate the era he has thereby navigated. Matthew Restall teaches at the Pennsylvania State University, where he is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of History, Anthropology, and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and Director of Latin American Studies. Caleb Zakarin is editor at the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/popular-culture

Elton John is not only "still standing," he is a living superlative, the ultimate record-breaking, award-winning survivor of the great era of pop and rock music that he helped to shape during his six decades in the music industry. Yet few of his numerous biographies and song guides take him as a historical subject worthy of scholarly study.In contrast, On Elton John: An Opinionated Guide (Oxford University Press, 2025) approaches the artist seriously and analytically, while still couched in a highly accessible style. Author Matthew Restall offers a new way to explore Sir Elton's career and music within the contexts of other artists and of sweeping shifts in popular culture during his lifetime. Each of the ten chapters is anchored to an Elton song, rooted in its pop culture history, and advances a clear argument, pairing him with figures ranging from Bernie (Bernie Taupin, his lyricist) to Bennie (of the Jets), from "frenemy" David Bowie to artists like Rod Stewart, Aretha Franklin, and Dua Lipa, from Diana (the princess) to Jesus (yes, that one). Restall contends that Sir Elton's career offers us a novel way to see and understand the last half century of pop music and culture history--whether we call the era that of the album, of rock, of postmodernism, or of something else. The yellow brick road of Sir Elton's career has been long, winding, and bumpy, but, as Restall argues, his success has come not just despite but because of those challenges. The artist's transformations from Reg to Elton to Sir Elton to Uncle Elton, from ugly duckling to bedazzled swan, from the world's biggest rock star to creator of the world's largest AIDS fundraising organization, from tabloid punching bag to pop royalty, have all served as survival strategies that illuminate the era he has thereby navigated. Matthew Restall teaches at the Pennsylvania State University, where he is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of History, Anthropology, and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and Director of Latin American Studies. Caleb Zakarin is editor at the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Elton John is not only "still standing," he is a living superlative, the ultimate record-breaking, award-winning survivor of the great era of pop and rock music that he helped to shape during his six decades in the music industry. Yet few of his numerous biographies and song guides take him as a historical subject worthy of scholarly study.In contrast, On Elton John: An Opinionated Guide (Oxford University Press, 2025) approaches the artist seriously and analytically, while still couched in a highly accessible style. Author Matthew Restall offers a new way to explore Sir Elton's career and music within the contexts of other artists and of sweeping shifts in popular culture during his lifetime. Each of the ten chapters is anchored to an Elton song, rooted in its pop culture history, and advances a clear argument, pairing him with figures ranging from Bernie (Bernie Taupin, his lyricist) to Bennie (of the Jets), from "frenemy" David Bowie to artists like Rod Stewart, Aretha Franklin, and Dua Lipa, from Diana (the princess) to Jesus (yes, that one). Restall contends that Sir Elton's career offers us a novel way to see and understand the last half century of pop music and culture history--whether we call the era that of the album, of rock, of postmodernism, or of something else. The yellow brick road of Sir Elton's career has been long, winding, and bumpy, but, as Restall argues, his success has come not just despite but because of those challenges. The artist's transformations from Reg to Elton to Sir Elton to Uncle Elton, from ugly duckling to bedazzled swan, from the world's biggest rock star to creator of the world's largest AIDS fundraising organization, from tabloid punching bag to pop royalty, have all served as survival strategies that illuminate the era he has thereby navigated. Matthew Restall teaches at the Pennsylvania State University, where he is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of History, Anthropology, and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and Director of Latin American Studies. Caleb Zakarin is editor at the New Books Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/music

Elton John is not only "still standing," he is a living superlative, the ultimate record-breaking, award-winning survivor of the great era of pop and rock music that he helped to shape during his six decades in the music industry. Yet few of his numerous biographies and song guides take him as a historical subject worthy of scholarly study.In contrast, On Elton John: An Opinionated Guide (Oxford University Press, 2025) approaches the artist seriously and analytically, while still couched in a highly accessible style. Author Matthew Restall offers a new way to explore Sir Elton's career and music within the contexts of other artists and of sweeping shifts in popular culture during his lifetime. Each of the ten chapters is anchored to an Elton song, rooted in its pop culture history, and advances a clear argument, pairing him with figures ranging from Bernie (Bernie Taupin, his lyricist) to Bennie (of the Jets), from "frenemy" David Bowie to artists like Rod Stewart, Aretha Franklin, and Dua Lipa, from Diana (the princess) to Jesus (yes, that one). Restall contends that Sir Elton's career offers us a novel way to see and understand the last half century of pop music and culture history--whether we call the era that of the album, of rock, of postmodernism, or of something else. The yellow brick road of Sir Elton's career has been long, winding, and bumpy, but, as Restall argues, his success has come not just despite but because of those challenges. The artist's transformations from Reg to Elton to Sir Elton to Uncle Elton, from ugly duckling to bedazzled swan, from the world's biggest rock star to creator of the world's largest AIDS fundraising organization, from tabloid punching bag to pop royalty, have all served as survival strategies that illuminate the era he has thereby navigated. Matthew Restall teaches at the Pennsylvania State University, where he is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of History, Anthropology, and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and Director of Latin American Studies. Caleb Zakarin is editor at the New Books Network.

The AFA's Keith Whittington sits down with Michael Berube and Jennifer Ruth to discuss their recent book, It's Not Free Speech: Race, Democracy, and the Future of Academic Freedom. Michael is the Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Literature at Pennsylvania State University. Jennifer is a professor of film at Portland State University. He is the author of such books as What's Liberal about the Liberal Arts? Classroom Politics and Bias in Higher Education, and she is the co-editor of the recent book, The Right to Learn: Resisting the Right-Wing Attack on Academic Freedom. They both served as members of Committee A on academic freedom at the American Association of University Professors.

Subscribe, Rate, & Review on YouTube • Spotify • Apple PodcastsThis Week's GuestWhen, suddenly, the barrier between “imagination” and “reality” evaporates as our familiar notions of here/there, now/then, in/out, and other/self twist up into a ball of non-Euclidean spaghetti, whom better to help steer the course through these “turbulent philosophical waters” than Richard Doyle, aka “M0b1ius”, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor at Penn State Center for Humanities and Information in the College of Liberal Arts? After his postdoctoral research at MIT in History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, Doyle wrote The Wetwares Trilogy, a sequence of books on the history of information biology that reached its climax with one of my favorite reads of all time, Darwin's Pharmacy: Sex, Plants, and The Evolution of the Noosphere. He is also the author of The Genesis of Now: Self Experiments with the Bible & the End of Religion and Into The Stillness: Dialogues on Awakening Beyond Thought (with Gary Weber), and has taught courses on “aliens, Philip K. Dick, nanotechnology, rebellion itself, ecstasy, Sanskrit rhetorical traditions, Burroughs, basic argumentation, The Non Dual Bible, and everything in between.” I discovered Doyle through his appearances on my first favorite podcast, Erik Davis' Expanding Mind, and in the thirteen years since he has shown up for me time and time again as mentor, friend, and inspiration. And since this project is, ostensibly, a way of training my own language model to reflect the wisdom of my friends and colleagues, I can think of no one else I'd rather prime the batch. It is my great privilege and honor to be able to have him as the first guest in this series, as a way of of helping set the tone for everything that is to come…LinksRichard Doyle's faculty web page and publicationsLearn more about this project and read the essays so far (1, 2, 3, 4).Make tax-deductible donations to Humans On The LoopBrowse my reading list and support local booksellersJoin the Holistic Technology & Wise Innovation Discord serverJoin the private Future Fossils Facebook groupHire me for consulting or advisory workChapters0:00:00 – Teaser0:03:36 – Episode Intro0:12:44 – Introducing Richard Doyle0:29:33 – The Ego as Inflammation0:33:58 – Practicing Care in The Planet-Wide Makerspace0:48:30 – Digital Connection vs. Embodied Connection0:55:46 – Psychedelics as Training Wheels for Transhumanism1:02:43 – “Storytelling” Isn't A Professional Service (??)1:05:25 – Techniques for Reclaiming Attention & Finding Peace1:15:22 – Meditation as “The Halting Problem”1:17:30 – Beyond The Limits of Science1:22:17 – AI-Enabled Extraction vs. AI-Enabled Abundance1:38:40 – Closing RemarksReflectionsMuch of tech ethics discourse concerns itself with whether humans are “in the loop” or “out of the loop” — whether people get to call the shots. But there is always more than one loop. Most of the things our fleshy bodies do are local decisions made before we ever become conscious of them, if we ever do…and yet evolution clearly found some value in reflection, self-awareness, reflex inhibition, and the will that quiets maladaptive impulse. Widening our frame to see the way that humans are always-already intertwingled with our ecosystems, we can see ourselves as made of interference patterns between nested feedback loops — as focal points of conscious agency dependent on and acting in a massive, endlessly surprising web of automatic processes. For as long as we've been people we have never really “called the shots” but rather cultivated our response-ability within a cosmos made of entities whose otherness and mystery remained persistently opaque…and ritualized ways to live amidst this mystery in full recognition of the unity from which we cannot isolate ourselves.And this is only one of indefinitely many valid ways to understand the human. Like the telescope and microscope before them, language models reveal fresh perspectives on familiar landscapes. We do not need to leave our solar system to find “strange new worlds” awaiting us in places as familiar as our own minds and bodies. While most of the conversation lately seems to be about the power these new maps confer and whether it can be distributed more evenly, AI provides a new set of affordances for mystics for the transformation of our consciousness that can dissolve our wicked problems in a higher logical order. “What can I do?” becomes “Who am I?” and yields endlessly evolving and kaleidoscopic answers that provoke ongoing inquiry. To see the ways in which we are, as individuals, not just “connected” but precipitate as aggregates, in fields of constellated data, prompts a figure-ground reversal in which selves no longer hold their primacy as ground truth of our being, but show up last as we make inferences and draw stories from unbroken and inseparable experience.Something fundamental changes when we shift to seeing “human” and “non-human” as two stable patterns of recursive self-perception emerging from a single fabric of unfolding possibility: we find the opportunity to question what we're trying to achieve, to notice the ungrounded and conditional reality of narrative, to operate on our own “source code” and adjust our goals accordingly.If we can find the curiosity to ask ourselves if our fears and inadequacies really help us live the lives we want, we can follow it upstream to where each moment offers fresh, distinctive landscapes in which to explore and play and learn. In doing so, we rediscover vast and potent creativity. Instead of asking whether we can do more, we can ask “What do we want to do, and why is that desire substantiated?”This kind of meaning-making isn't just a luxury but an essential aspect of all efforts to survive and to succeed. The best way to get unstuck is to orient ourselves and take a different tack. We all know something isn't working. It's time to ask if, maybe, this is due to “user error” and the answer doesn't lie in new technologies, but in the simplest and most ancient truths available. We cannot control the world because we are the world — and, this entails a sense of radical responsibility to play our way into more well-adapted stories, models of the world we hold with humor and humility as they carve channels in the space of shared attention that coordinate us into futures good and true and beautiful.In other words, the magical technologies inspiring so much religious fear and fervor are both Towers of Babel and fingers pointing to the Moon. They are weird, unprecedented, and sublime — and they are business as usual on Planet Earth, where we have always come awake in medias res amidst unfathomable changes and unknowable intelligence. Recognizing this, we gain access to deep continuity and the place from which we can, at last, engage the question of “What Now?” with discipline and limber rigor suitable to the profound complexity we face.Digital technologies are psychedelic. We've been on a bad trip. It's time for us wiggle out, dream better, and allow a more capacious, plural, and harmonious humanity to take the oars together in whatever novel wonders may arise — to neither “give way to astonishment” nor let our fears steer us into the rocks. Humans On The Loop is an investigation of how awesome it could be, right now, to fully give in to the paradox, and notice how its knots untie in hyperspace, and revisit all our looming crises with more presence, grace, and understanding — and more lucid (dare I say, productive?) questions.One of those questions is how to apply the lessons of the living generations of psychonauts and psychedelic therapists to the vertiginous information and attention vortices in which we now found ourselves swirling. Maps of the World Wide Web look very much like brain scans of the amped-up functional connectivity between ordinarily inhibited brain regions in a psilocybin tripper. When the walls come down — when every node has edges with each other node, and average path length drops to one — how do we prioritize? What paths do we decide to cut through the emergent “intertwingularity”? Which apparitions do we honor, and which do we ignore? (And how?) Some familiar tropes that we might use to guide us: “test your drugs”, “get grounded”, “set and setting”, “integration counseling”…MentionsGenerated by NotebookLM. Please let me know if you notice any errors or omissions!* Richard Doyle* Michael Garfield * Gary Weber* Shankara* Trey Conner* Nora Pandoro* Erik Davis* Joshua DiCaglio* John Perry Barlow* Naomi Most* Nate Hagens* Daniel Schmachtenberger* Tyson Yunkaporta* Martin Luther King Jr.* Mahatma Gandhi* John Von Neumann* Subhash Kak* Iain McGilchrist* Timothy Morton* Stuart Kauffman* Dean Radin* Brian Josephson* Monica Gagliano* Christoph Koch* Gregory Bateson* Elon Musk* Robert Rosen* H.P. Lovecraft* Philip K. Dick* Herbert Simon* Douglas Rushkoff* Sri Aurobindo This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit michaelgarfield.substack.com/subscribe

This episode features an interview with Dr. Keith Gilyard conducted by guest host Dr. Derek G. Handley during the 2023 Rhetoric Society of America Summer Institute at Penn State University. They discuss Gilyard's path to a career in rhetoric, writing, and composition studies; his writing process and creative writing; academic mentorship and leadership; and his legacy and contributions to the field of African American rhetoric. Keith Gilyard is the Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of English and African American Studies at Penn State University. He formerly was a member of the faculty at Syracuse University and at Medgar Evers College of the City University of New York. He served as Thomas R. Watson Visiting Distinguished Professor of Rhetoric and Composition at the University of Louisville and as Presidential Scholar-in-Residence at the University of Oklahoma. The author of twenty-four books, his works include the education memoir Voices of the Self (1991), Composition and Cornel West (2008), On African American Rhetoric (with Adam Banks, 2018), biographies of John Oliver Killens (2011) and Louise Thompson Patterson (2017), the novella The Next Great Old-School Conspiracy (2015), and the poetry collections Impressions (2021) and On Location (2023). Gilyard is a former Chair of the Conference on College Composition and Communication and former president of the National Council of Teachers of English. He is the recipient of two American Book Awards, the CCCC Exemplar Award, the NCTE Distinguished Service Award, and the RSA Cheryl Geisler Award for Outstanding Mentor. This episode features a clip from "Super Glue" by Plushgoolash. Episode Transcript  

This week Claire Colebrook joined Taylor and Coop for a discussion of her new book, Who Would You Kill to Save the World. Claire is the Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of English, Philosophy, and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Penn State University. Claire is the author of over a dozen books spanning a broad range of disciplines and topics. We speak about micropolitics, cinematic ontology, and more. Support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/muhh Twitter: @unconscioushh

In Part 2 of our conversation with Michael Bérubé, we discuss the enduring legacy of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein—how a cautionary tale about reckless experimentation and radicalization speaks just as forcefully to our present moment as it did to readers in 1818. Michael Bérubé is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Literature at Penn State University and the editor of the Norton Library edition of Frankenstein. He is the author of ten books, including What's Liberal About the Liberal Arts? Classroom Politics and “Bias” in Higher Education and Life As We Know It: A Father, a Family, and an Exceptional Child. The Norton Library edition of Frankenstein features the complete text of the 1818 edition. To learn more or purchase a copy, go to http://seagull.wwnorton.com/frankenstein.Learn more about the Norton Library series at http://wwnorton.com/norton-library.Listen to our Spotify playlist inspired by Frankenstein: https://shorturl.at/inR68.Have questions or suggestions for the podcast? Email us at nortonlibrary@wwnorton.com or find us on Twitter @TNL_WWN.Episode transcript at: https://seagull.wwnorton.com/frankenstein/part1/transcript.

In this episode of the Norton Library Podcast, we welcome Michael Bérubé to discuss the origins of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and the radical (and enduring) questions the novel poses about science, religion, and humanity. Michael Bérubé is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Literature at Penn State University and the editor of the Norton Library edition of Frankenstein. He is the author of ten books, including What's Liberal About the Liberal Arts? Classroom Politics and “Bias” in Higher Education and Life As We Know It: A Father, a Family, and an Exceptional Child.  The Norton Library edition of Frankenstein features the complete text of the 1818 edition. To learn more or purchase a copy, go to http://seagull.wwnorton.com/frankenstein. Learn more about the Norton Library series at http://wwnorton.com/norton-library.Listen to our Spotify playlist inspired by Frankenstein: https://shorturl.at/inR68.Have questions or suggestions for the podcast? Email us at nortonlibrary@wwnorton.com or find us on Twitter @TNL_WWN. Episode transcript at: https://seagull.wwnorton.com/frankenstein/part1/transcript.

The protests of summer 2020 led to long-overdue reassessments of the legacy of racism and white supremacy in both American academe and cultural life more generally. But while universities have been willing to rename some buildings and schools or grapple with their role in the slave trade, no one has yet asked the most uncomfortable question: Does academic freedom extend to racist professors? It's Not Free Speech: Race, Democracy, and the Future of Academic Freedom (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022) considers the ideal of academic freedom in the wake of the activism inspired by outrageous police brutality, white supremacy, and the #MeToo movement. Arguing that academic freedom must be rigorously distinguished from freedom of speech, Michael Bérubé and Jennifer Ruth take aim at explicit defenses of colonialism and theories of white supremacy—theories that have no intellectual legitimacy whatsoever. Approaching this question from two angles—one, the question of when a professor's intramural or extramural speech calls into question his or her fitness to serve, and two, the question of how to manage the simmering tension between the academic freedom of faculty and the antidiscrimination initiatives of campus offices of diversity, equity, and inclusion—they argue that the democracy-destroying potential of social media makes it very difficult to uphold the traditional liberal view that the best remedy for hate speech is more speech. In recent years, those with traditional liberal ideals have had very limited effectiveness in responding to the resurgence of white supremacism in American life. It is time, Bérubé and Ruth write, to ask whether that resurgence requires us to rethink the parameters and practices of academic freedom. Touching as well on contingent faculty, whose speech is often inadequately protected, It's Not Free Speech insists that we reimagine shared governance to augment both academic freedom and antidiscrimination initiatives on campuses.  Michael Bérubé (interviewed here) is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Literature at Pennsylvania State University; Jennifer Ruth is a professor of film at Portland State University. Both have served in various roles within the American Association of University Professors, and also coauthored The Humanities, Higher Education, and Academic Freedom: Three Necessary Arguments (2015). Catriona Gold is a PhD candidate in Geography at University College London, researching security and mobility in the 20-21st century United States. Her current work concerns the US Passport Office's role in the Cold War. She can be reached by email or on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The protests of summer 2020 led to long-overdue reassessments of the legacy of racism and white supremacy in both American academe and cultural life more generally. But while universities have been willing to rename some buildings and schools or grapple with their role in the slave trade, no one has yet asked the most uncomfortable question: Does academic freedom extend to racist professors? It's Not Free Speech: Race, Democracy, and the Future of Academic Freedom (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2022) considers the ideal of academic freedom in the wake of the activism inspired by outrageous police brutality, white supremacy, and the #MeToo movement. Arguing that academic freedom must be rigorously distinguished from freedom of speech, Michael Bérubé and Jennifer Ruth take aim at explicit defenses of colonialism and theories of white supremacy—theories that have no intellectual legitimacy whatsoever. Approaching this question from two angles—one, the question of when a professor's intramural or extramural speech calls into question his or her fitness to serve, and two, the question of how to manage the simmering tension between the academic freedom of faculty and the antidiscrimination initiatives of campus offices of diversity, equity, and inclusion—they argue that the democracy-destroying potential of social media makes it very difficult to uphold the traditional liberal view that the best remedy for hate speech is more speech. In recent years, those with traditional liberal ideals have had very limited effectiveness in responding to the resurgence of white supremacism in American life. It is time, Bérubé and Ruth write, to ask whether that resurgence requires us to rethink the parameters and practices of academic freedom. Touching as well on contingent faculty, whose speech is often inadequately protected, It's Not Free Speech insists that we reimagine shared governance to augment both academic freedom and antidiscrimination initiatives on campuses.  Michael Bérubé (interviewed here) is Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Literature at Pennsylvania State University; Jennifer Ruth is a professor of film at Portland State University. Both have served in various roles within the American Association of University Professors, and also coauthored The Humanities, Higher Education, and Academic Freedom: Three Necessary Arguments (2015). Catriona Gold is a PhD candidate in Geography at University College London, researching security and mobility in the 20-21st century United States. Her current work concerns the US Passport Office's role in the Cold War. She can be reached by email or on Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In conversation with Michael Kulikowski ''A national treasure, and easily the world's most famous classicist'' (The Guardian), Mary Beard ''radiates authority and expertise'' in guiding her readers through the world of Ancient Roman civilization. She is a professor at the University of Cambridge, a fellow of Newnham College, and a Royal Academy of the Arts professor of ancient literature. Some of her seminal works include Rome in the Late Republic, The Parthenon, The Fires of Vesuvius, and S.P.Q.R.: A History of Ancient Rome. Beard is also the classics editor of the Times Literary Supplement, where her column ''A Don's Life'' is regularly published. A frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books, she has written and presented several BBC historical documentaries. Twelve Caesars explores the ways in which images of Roman emperors have influenced artists and thinkers for more than 2,000 years. The head of the history department and the Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of History and Classics at Pennsylvania State University, Michael Kulikowski is the author of Rome's Gothic Wars, Late Roman Spain and Its Cities, The Triumph of Empire, and The Tragedy of Empire. He has appeared in several History Channel documentaries, has published numerous academic articles, and is a regular contributor to the London Review of Books and The Wall Street Journal. (recorded 3/17/2022)

Shara McCallum, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of English at Penn State University, writer and poet, speaking with WVIA's Fiona Powell about her recent book titled, "No Ruined Stone," released in 2021 by Alice James Books. For more information: www.sharamccallum.com/

What should academic freedom look like in 2022? How has it become conflated with the idea of free speech? Who should decide how issues regarding faculty speech should be adjudicated? Those are just a few of the questions we explore this week with Michael Bérubé and Jennifer Ruth, authors of It's Not Free Speech: Race, Democracy, and the Future of Academic Freedom. The book considers the ideal of academic freedom in the wake of the activism inspired by outrageous police brutality, white supremacy, and the #MeToo movement. Arguing that academic freedom must be rigorously distinguished from freedom of speech, Bérubé and Ruth take aim at explicit defenses of colonialism and theories of white supremacy—theories that have no intellectual legitimacy whatsoever.  They argue that the democracy-destroying potential of social media makes it very difficult to uphold the traditional liberal view that the best remedy for hate speech is more speech.Bérubé is the Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Literature at Penn State; Ruth is a professor of film at Portland State University. They've also coauthored Humanities, Higher Education, and Academic Freedom: Three Necessary Arguments. Additional InformationIt's Not Free Speech: Race, Democracy and the Future of Academic FreedomRelated EpisodesJonathan Rauch on The Constitution of KnowledgeAre land-grant universities still democracy's colleges? 

Capitalism and Schizophrenia is a major text of French poststructuralist thought by Giles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. Made up of the two volumes Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus, it articulates a new way of doing both philosophy and psychoanalysis that insists on the concrete relevance and transformative potential of the disciplines for day-to-day life. Matthew Sweet is joined by Henry Somers-Hall, Reader in Philosophy at Royal Holloway, University of London and editor of A Thousand Plateaus and Philosophy; Claire Colebrook, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of English, Philosophy, and Woman's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Penn State University; and Ian Parker, practicing psychoanalyst and managing editor of the Annual Review f Critical Psychology. Producer: Luke Mulhall You can find a playlist exploring philosophy on the Free Thinking programme website with episodes looking at Michel Foucault, Derrida, the Vietnamese thinker Tran Duc Thao who influenced Derrida, as well as editions on Hegel and on the quartet of female philosophers who helped shaped British philosophy in the twentieth century https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07x0twx

On November 8, 1519, the Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortés first met Montezuma, the Aztec emperor, at the entrance to the capital city of Tenochtitlan. This introduction—the prelude to the Spanish seizure of Mexico City and to European colonization of the mainland of the Americas—has long been the symbol of Cortés's bold and brilliant military genius. Montezuma, on the other hand, is remembered as a coward who gave away a vast empire and touched off a wave of colonial invasions across the hemisphere. But is this really what happened? Matthew Restall, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Latin American History at Pennsylvania State University and President of the American Society for Ethnohistory, departs from this traditional telling in his When Montezuma Met Cortés: The True Story of the Meeting that Changed History (Ecco, 2018). Restall uses “the Meeting”—what he dubs their first encounter—as the entry point into a comprehensive reevaluation of both Cortés and Montezuma. Drawing on rare primary sources and overlooked accounts by conquistadors and Aztecs alike, Restall explores Cortés's and Montezuma's posthumous reputations, their achievements and failures, and the worlds in which they lived—leading, step by step, to a dramatic inversion of the old story. As Restall takes us through this sweeping, revisionist account of a pivotal moment in modern civilization, he calls into question our view of the history of the Americas, and, indeed, of history itself. Ryan Tripp teaches history at several community colleges, universities, and online extensions. In 2014, he graduated from the University of California, Davis, with a Ph.D. in History. His Ph.D. double minor included World History and Native American Studies, with an emphasis in Linguistic Anthropology and Indigenous Archeology. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On November 8, 1519, the Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortés first met Montezuma, the Aztec emperor, at the entrance to the capital city of Tenochtitlan. This introduction—the prelude to the Spanish seizure of Mexico City and to European colonization of the mainland of the Americas—has long been the symbol of Cortés's bold and brilliant military genius. Montezuma, on the other hand, is remembered as a coward who gave away a vast empire and touched off a wave of colonial invasions across the hemisphere. But is this really what happened? Matthew Restall, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Latin American History at Pennsylvania State University and President of the American Society for Ethnohistory, departs from this traditional telling in his When Montezuma Met Cortés: The True Story of the Meeting that Changed History (Ecco, 2018). Restall uses “the Meeting”—what he dubs their first encounter—as the entry point into a comprehensive reevaluation of both Cortés and Montezuma. Drawing on rare primary sources and overlooked accounts by conquistadors and Aztecs alike, Restall explores Cortés's and Montezuma's posthumous reputations, their achievements and failures, and the worlds in which they lived—leading, step by step, to a dramatic inversion of the old story. As Restall takes us through this sweeping, revisionist account of a pivotal moment in modern civilization, he calls into question our view of the history of the Americas, and, indeed, of history itself. Ryan Tripp teaches history at several community colleges, universities, and online extensions. In 2014, he graduated from the University of California, Davis, with a Ph.D. in History. His Ph.D. double minor included World History and Native American Studies, with an emphasis in Linguistic Anthropology and Indigenous Archeology. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On November 8, 1519, the Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortés first met Montezuma, the Aztec emperor, at the entrance to the capital city of Tenochtitlan. This introduction—the prelude to the Spanish seizure of Mexico City and to European colonization of the mainland of the Americas—has long been the symbol of Cortés’s bold and brilliant military genius. Montezuma, on the other hand, is remembered as a coward who gave away a vast empire and touched off a wave of colonial invasions across the hemisphere. But is this really what happened? Matthew Restall, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Latin American History at Pennsylvania State University and President of the American Society for Ethnohistory, departs from this traditional telling in his When Montezuma Met Cortés: The True Story of the Meeting that Changed History (Ecco, 2018). Restall uses “the Meeting”—what he dubs their first encounter—as the entry point into a comprehensive reevaluation of both Cortés and Montezuma. Drawing on rare primary sources and overlooked accounts by conquistadors and Aztecs alike, Restall explores Cortés’s and Montezuma’s posthumous reputations, their achievements and failures, and the worlds in which they lived—leading, step by step, to a dramatic inversion of the old story. As Restall takes us through this sweeping, revisionist account of a pivotal moment in modern civilization, he calls into question our view of the history of the Americas, and, indeed, of history itself. Ryan Tripp teaches history at several community colleges, universities, and online extensions. In 2014, he graduated from the University of California, Davis, with a Ph.D. in History. His Ph.D. double minor included World History and Native American Studies, with an emphasis in Linguistic Anthropology and Indigenous Archeology. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On November 8, 1519, the Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortés first met Montezuma, the Aztec emperor, at the entrance to the capital city of Tenochtitlan. This introduction—the prelude to the Spanish seizure of Mexico City and to European colonization of the mainland of the Americas—has long been the symbol of Cortés’s bold and brilliant military genius. Montezuma, on the other hand, is remembered as a coward who gave away a vast empire and touched off a wave of colonial invasions across the hemisphere. But is this really what happened? Matthew Restall, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Latin American History at Pennsylvania State University and President of the American Society for Ethnohistory, departs from this traditional telling in his When Montezuma Met Cortés: The True Story of the Meeting that Changed History (Ecco, 2018). Restall uses “the Meeting”—what he dubs their first encounter—as the entry point into a comprehensive reevaluation of both Cortés and Montezuma. Drawing on rare primary sources and overlooked accounts by conquistadors and Aztecs alike, Restall explores Cortés’s and Montezuma’s posthumous reputations, their achievements and failures, and the worlds in which they lived—leading, step by step, to a dramatic inversion of the old story. As Restall takes us through this sweeping, revisionist account of a pivotal moment in modern civilization, he calls into question our view of the history of the Americas, and, indeed, of history itself. Ryan Tripp teaches history at several community colleges, universities, and online extensions. In 2014, he graduated from the University of California, Davis, with a Ph.D. in History. His Ph.D. double minor included World History and Native American Studies, with an emphasis in Linguistic Anthropology and Indigenous Archeology. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On November 8, 1519, the Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortés first met Montezuma, the Aztec emperor, at the entrance to the capital city of Tenochtitlan. This introduction—the prelude to the Spanish seizure of Mexico City and to European colonization of the mainland of the Americas—has long been the symbol of Cortés’s bold and brilliant military genius. Montezuma, on the other hand, is remembered as a coward who gave away a vast empire and touched off a wave of colonial invasions across the hemisphere. But is this really what happened? Matthew Restall, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Latin American History at Pennsylvania State University and President of the American Society for Ethnohistory, departs from this traditional telling in his When Montezuma Met Cortés: The True Story of the Meeting that Changed History (Ecco, 2018). Restall uses “the Meeting”—what he dubs their first encounter—as the entry point into a comprehensive reevaluation of both Cortés and Montezuma. Drawing on rare primary sources and overlooked accounts by conquistadors and Aztecs alike, Restall explores Cortés’s and Montezuma’s posthumous reputations, their achievements and failures, and the worlds in which they lived—leading, step by step, to a dramatic inversion of the old story. As Restall takes us through this sweeping, revisionist account of a pivotal moment in modern civilization, he calls into question our view of the history of the Americas, and, indeed, of history itself. Ryan Tripp teaches history at several community colleges, universities, and online extensions. In 2014, he graduated from the University of California, Davis, with a Ph.D. in History. His Ph.D. double minor included World History and Native American Studies, with an emphasis in Linguistic Anthropology and Indigenous Archeology. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On November 8, 1519, the Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortés first met Montezuma, the Aztec emperor, at the entrance to the capital city of Tenochtitlan. This introduction—the prelude to the Spanish seizure of Mexico City and to European colonization of the mainland of the Americas—has long been the symbol of Cortés’s bold and brilliant military genius. Montezuma, on the other hand, is remembered as a coward who gave away a vast empire and touched off a wave of colonial invasions across the hemisphere. But is this really what happened? Matthew Restall, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Latin American History at Pennsylvania State University and President of the American Society for Ethnohistory, departs from this traditional telling in his When Montezuma Met Cortés: The True Story of the Meeting that Changed History (Ecco, 2018). Restall uses “the Meeting”—what he dubs their first encounter—as the entry point into a comprehensive reevaluation of both Cortés and Montezuma. Drawing on rare primary sources and overlooked accounts by conquistadors and Aztecs alike, Restall explores Cortés’s and Montezuma’s posthumous reputations, their achievements and failures, and the worlds in which they lived—leading, step by step, to a dramatic inversion of the old story. As Restall takes us through this sweeping, revisionist account of a pivotal moment in modern civilization, he calls into question our view of the history of the Americas, and, indeed, of history itself. Ryan Tripp teaches history at several community colleges, universities, and online extensions. In 2014, he graduated from the University of California, Davis, with a Ph.D. in History. His Ph.D. double minor included World History and Native American Studies, with an emphasis in Linguistic Anthropology and Indigenous Archeology. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices