Podcasts about Princeton University

It's Constitution Day, or rather Constitution Eve as we record.  Akhil is the invited speaker at Princeton University's gala event, and ahead of the speech, we invited Princeton undergraduates to come and talk about the Constitution with us; to voice their questions, and to help us honor the mission of the day by engaging with American citizens on that thing that we all share and that hopefully embodies some set of shared values, history, and tradition.  Akhil fielded, Cosell-style, the barrage of questions, and we came away reassured about the next generation and the likelihood of the document enduring.  And Happy Constitution Day to all of you!  CLE credit is available for lawyers and judges from podcast.njsba.com.

For every member of the Forbes 400, there are more than 4,000 private business owners worth at least $10 million. You probably have never heard of any of them.They own the beer distributorship in your town, the dental group with four offices, the HVAC trucks that passed your house this morning. A decade inside anonymized IRS data turned up three million of them, and the version of that story running in many outlets this month is the hopeful one: fortunes still being built in unglamorous industries, far from the coasts, by people with no degree and no connections. The American Dream, alive and hiding in plain sight.That is one part of what the data says. The other part is that the largest fortunes are concentrated where the law limits who can compete at all, and the owners have the political weight to keep it there. Whether the first part redeems the second is the entire argument here. The economist who found the numbers doesn't know for sure whether it's a good or worrying story.Eric Zwick is the Joel F. Gemunder Professor of Economics and Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and co-author, with Owen Zidar of Princeton University, of “The Everywhere Millionaire: Who Is Really Rich in America and How They Got There”: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250378507/theeverywheremillionaire/ Connect with us:

Debates about AI typically deal with its immediate material consequences, from cybersecurity and infrastructure to plagiarism and copyright. Yet most people deal with AI as a generative consumer product that raises longer-term questions about its cultural effects on American society, human art, and ultimately, our souls. What is the role of the artist, for example, when a bot can crank out the same thing more quickly and efficiently?To help answer that question, as we continue Season 6, I have as our guest the playwright, novelist, and essayist Matthew Gasda. The author of the novels The Sleepers (2025) and Stranger Beauty (2026), he has written, produced, and directed over thirty plays, including Dimes Square, Zoomers, and Doomers, with his former production company, The Center for Theatre Research.Today, drawing on his upcoming book, Futurepast (Encounter Books 2026), alongside Stranger Beauty, his many essays on culture and technology, as well as his Ted Talk about training an LLM on his own works, we discuss the future of the creative arts in the AI age.We also touch upon the paradoxes of Jorge-Luis Borges, Harold Bloom's literary criticism, what is different about large language models, why Kafka felt older than his predecessors, the mysteries of poetic inspiration and of the soul, what hosting live theater was like during the pandemic, the possibility of secular monasteries, how to use AI as a competitor to root out artistic complacency, and the unpredictable prospects for cultural renewal.Hosted by Ryan Shinkel, Madison's Notes is the podcast of Princeton University's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. The transcript for this interview is available on the JMP substack page, “Madison's Footnotes. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Much has been made of Trump dispatching his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, for high-stakes diplomatic missions to solve conflicts across the world, but what do we know of the rest of the Kushner family?   Jared's father, Charles Kushner, is now ambassador to France, pardoned by Trump after a criminal conviction that included tax violations and witness tampering. And his younger brother, Josh Kushner, quietly bought an NBA team after a bruising, aborted deal to sell off pieces of the World Cup earlier this year.Geraldine Doogue and Latika Bourke go roaming through the Kushner story with investigative journalist and author Andrea Bernstein.She traces it from the family's escape from the Nazis in Poland, through Charles Kushner's spectacular fall, to Jared's current role as a "special government employee" operating with none of the disclosure obligations that usually apply in Washington.Bernstein's verdict: the US isn't drifting toward oligarchy anymore. It already is one. Guest: Andrew Bernstein, investigative journalist and author of American Oligarchs: The Kushners, the Trumps, and the Marriage of Money and Power.Get in touch:We'd love to hear from you! Email us at global.roaming@abc.net.auFind all the episodes of Global Roaming now via the ABC Listen App or wherever you get your podcasts. 

Dr. Tania Lombrozo, professor of psychology at Princeton University (affiliated with its philosophy and cognitive science departments), joins Thomas to discuss her forthcoming book Why We Ask Why: The Science of Explanation and the Human Drive to Understand. Why are humans so driven to explain things, but only some things? Why does understanding go beyond just being able to predict? And what happens when asking why makes you the social liability in the room? Are you an expert in something and want to be on the show? Apply here! Please support the show on Patreon! You get ad-free episodes, early episodes, and other bonus content! https://www.patreon.com/seriouspod

American higher education is in need of serious reform. Campus protests and activist professors are just the tip of the iceberg. But over the past 26 years, Princeton University professor Robert P. George has been building a movement that's revitalizing American colleges and universities. In this episode of Giving Ventures, Prof. George joins Peter to […]

Money Disrupted is a monthly roundtable series examining how economic fragmentation, geopolitics and technological change are reshaping the global monetary order.  Drawing on lessons from economic history, this episode examines two defining questions for the US and global outlook. First, can the new Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh bring inflation sustainably under control at the 2% target level? Second, will the artificial intelligence boom continue with positive effects for the US and world economy without a destabilising correction? Markus Brunnermeier, Edwards S. Sanford Professor of Economics; Princeton University and Director, Bendheim Center for Finance and Harold James, Claude and Lore Kelly Professor in European Studies at Princeton University, join David Marsh, chairman of OMFIF, to explore what previous inflationary episodes and technology-driven investment booms can tell us about today's monetary policy challenges, market valuations and the prospects for AI to deliver lasting gains in productivity and economic growth. Join OMFIF for the September Federal Open Market Committee Watch on 18 September to examine the outcomes of the September FOMC meeting and the outlook for US monetary policy.

(00:00) The Gaza Concentration Camp (11:37) The Military and Intel Operations Focused on Destroying Gaza (14:05) Evidence of Israel's Genocide in Gaza (27:58) The Attacks Against Anyone Who Criticizes Israel (1:11:34) Why They Kicked Finkelstein Out of Hunter College Norman Finkelstein received his doctorate from the Department of Politics at Princeton University. His books have been translated into some sixty foreign editions. They include The Holocaust Industry, What Gandhi Says, and I'll Burn That Bridge When I Get to It. A 2020 study ranked Finkelstein the fifth most influential political scientist in the world. Norman Finkelstein's new book is Gaza's Gravediggers: https://orbooks.com/catalog/gazas-gravediggers  Paid partnerships with: Hallow prayer app: Get 3 months free at https://Hallow.com/TuckerStopBox USA: Get firearm security redesigned and save 10% off @StopBoxUSA with code TUCKER at https://stopboxusa.com/TUCKER American Financing: NMLS 182334, nmlsconsumeraccess.org. APR for rates in the 5s start at 6.327% for well qualified borrowers. Call 800-685-5696 for details about credit costs and terms. Visit http://www.AmericanFinancing.net/Tucker. Joi + Blokes: Use code TUCKER for 65% off your labs and 20% off all peptides and supplements at https://joiandblokes.com/tucker Alp Pouch: Shop the new Frontier collection at https://AlpPouch.com/Tucker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As America prepares to commemorate the 25th anniversary of September 11, many conversations will look back at the events of that day.  Scott Gibbs offers a conversation about what the past quarter century has taught us about conflict, belonging, and how Americans can build stronger connections across political, cultural, and religious differences for a better future.  Scott Gibbs is a California-licensed psychotherapist in private practice. A board member of the Existential-Humanistic Institute, he draws on clinical experience and longstanding independent scholarship to inform his writing on the roots of conflict in everyday relationships, in intimate partnerships, and across groups. His peer-reviewed work has appeared in the Journal of Humanistic Psychology. He holds degrees from Princeton University and Northwestern University.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/arroe-collins-unplugged-totally-uncut--994165/support.

On YOUTUBE.com/StandUpWithPete ON SubstackStandUpWithPete Stand Up is a daily podcast. I book,host,edit, post and promote new episodes with brilliant guests every day. This show is Ad free and fully supported by listeners like you! Please subscribe now for as little as 5$ and gain access to a community of over 750 awesome, curious, kind, funny, brilliant, generous souls Subscribe to Waj Substack Channel "The Left Hook" Check out his new show on youtube 'America Unhinged,' with Francesca Fiorentini and Wajahat Ali - Zeteo's new weekly show following Trump's first 100 days in office. Wajahat Ali is a Daily Beast columnist, public speaker, recovering attorney, and tired dad of three cute kids. Get his book Go Back To Where You Came From: And, Other Helpful Recommendations on Becoming American which will be published in January 2022 by Norton. He believes in sharing stories that are by us, for everyone: universal narratives told through a culturally specific lens to entertain, educate and bridge the global divides. Listen to Waj and DAnielle Moodie on Democracy-ish  He frequently appears on television and podcasts for his brilliant, incisive, and witty political commentary. Born in the Bay Area, California to Pakistani immigrant parents, Ali went to school wearing Husky pants and knowing only three words of English. He graduated from UC Berkeley with an English major and became a licensed attorney. He knows what it feels like to be the token minority in the classroom and the darkest person in a boardroom. Like Spiderman, he's often had the power and responsibility of being the cultural ambassador of an entire group of people, those who are often marginalized, silenced, or reduced to stereotypes. His essays, interviews, and reporting have appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and New York Review of Books. Ali has spoken at many organizations, from Google to Walmart-Jet to Princeton University to the United Nations to the Chandni Indian-Pakistani Restaurant in Newark, California, and his living room in front of his three kids. On YOUTUBE.com/StandUpWithPete ON SubstackStandUpWithPete Pete on Blue Sky Pete on Threads Pete on Tik Tok Pete on YouTube  Pete on Twitter Pete On Instagram Pete Personal FB page Stand Up with Pete FB page   Gift a Subscription https://www.patreon.com/PeteDominick/gift Send Pete $ Directly on Venmo

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani called on current Mayor Zohran Mamdani not to attend an annual ceremony commemorating the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Giuliani also made false claims about Islam, Mamdani's religion. Mamdani said he will attend the ceremony. Moustafa Bayoumi, professor at Brooklyn College, explains more.Then, in the months following the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attack in New York City, officials repeatedly reassured New Yorkers that the air in lower Manhattan was safe to breathe. But this week, 170,000 pages of documents made public by Mamdani show that wasn't true. Ben Chevat, executive director at the nonprofit 9/11 Health Watch, breaks down the findings.And, in 1998, terror attacks hit two U.S. embassies and in 2000, the USS Cole was attacked. Princeton University historian Julian Zelizer says these events were warning signs ahead of 9/11 that the government missed.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

In this episode of Peaks to Power, hosts Kerrin and Taylor get into the details on a partnership to advance grid reliability, some fantastic interns, and energy storage strategies. - NLR researchers, in collaboration with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the University of Chicago, Princeton University, and industrial advisors, study opportunities to lower costs of computing facilities through cooling systems.  - Lab interns take a trip into the Edgar Experimental Mine near Golden, Colorado, and share their summer internship experiences.   - NLR and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation launch a partnership to advance the reliability of the North American bulk power system. This episode was hosted by Kerrin Jeromin and Taylor Mankle, written and produced by Allison Montroy, Hannah Halusker, and Kaitlyn Stottler, and edited by Taylor Mankle, Joe DelNero, and Brittany Falch. Graphics are by Brittnee Gayet. Our title music is written and performed by Ted Vaca and episode music by Chuck Kurnik, Jim Riley, and Mark Sanseverino of Drift BC. Peaks to Power is created by the U.S. Department of Energy's National Laboratory of the Rockies in Golden, Colorado. Email us at podcast@nlr.gov. Follow NLR on X, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, Threads, and Facebook.  

Australia's Law Reform Commission is due to release its review of surrogacy laws this week. Surrogacy advocates have lobbied hard to allow commercial or compensated surrogacy for women who bear children for couples who cannot, or choose not to, have a natural pregnancy. But the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women is urging the federal government not to liberalise the laws. Reem Alsalem says it will lead to the exploitation of poor women. She was in Australia recently and met the commission to put her case.PLUSFor the first time since the 1930s, a far-right party is poised to take government in a German state. In the weekend elections in Saxony-Anhalt, the Alternative for Deutschland won 44 per cent of the vote. The party's unmistakably, and unashamedly, anti-Islam, but its relationship with the Christian churches is also severely strained. ANDAs the war in Sudan continues into its fourth year -- with a death toll as high as 400,000 – violence has come to the last refuge. In the Nuba mountains, Christian and Muslim Sudanese have traditionally lived in peaceful co-existence, and in roughly equal numbers. But the Sudan People's Liberation Movement has set up a de facto government, principally to control the abundant resources of the mountains. GUESTS:Reem Alsalim  is the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Violence Against WomenJan-Werner Mueller is a Princeton University political scientist and one the world's leading experts on the far right. His latest book is called Street, Palace, Square: The Architecture of Democratic Spaces.Mohaned El Nour is a distinguished Sudanese human rights lawyer who works with the group Christian Solidarity Worldwide.   STATEMENT FROM THE AUSTRALIAN LAW REFORM COMMISSIONThe ALRC typically establishes an advisory committee for each inquiry. Advisory committee members are selected for their expertise and experience relevant to the area of law under consideration, including expertise in regulation, research, policy, or practice. An advisory committee is not intended to represent all stakeholder groups involved in an inquiry, as the ALRC consults more broadly through a range of other mechanisms.The role of an advisory committee is solely advisory. Advisory committee members provide feedback and share their views. Their input is one of many sources that inform the ALRC's work. The ALRC always consults broadly and hears from a range of views. We do so through public submissions (open to anyone with an interest in an inquiry), consultations, surveys, webinars, round-tables, and other stakeholder engagement activities. Advisory committee members, like all consultees, have no decision-making role. The views of any consultee or advisory committee are informative but are not determinative.All inquiry decisions are made by the ALRC's President and Commissioners. In developing recommendations, the President and Commissioners consider the totality of the evidence before them, including submissions, consultations, research, and the ALRC's independent analysis.This program was made on the lands of the Gadigal People of the Eora nation

For the first time since the 1930s, a far-right party is poised to take government in a German state. In the weekend elections in Saxony-Anhalt, the Alternative for Deutschland won 44 per cent of the vote. The party's unmistakably, and unashamedly, anti-Islam but its relationship with the Christian churches is severely strained.GUEST:Jan-Werner Mueller is a Princeton University political scientist and one the world's leading experts on the far right. His latest book is called Street, Palace, Square: The Architecture of Democratic Spaces.

The topic of this episode is, “Are we being too hard on Congress?”Hating Congress has become a national pastime. If you asked the average American what they think of Congress, they'll tell you that it is corrupt, that nobody is doing anything, and that the President and Supreme Court are making all the decisions. They'll also gripe that Congress keeps passing bigger and bigger spending bills, but that Congress also cannot keep the government open.No bones about it, Congress falls short in many ways.To be fair, however, Congress also gets a lot of bad press. Many of you no doubt recall the podcast I did with Rob Oldham last summer, where we discussed the research showing that Congress does not get a lot of media coverage for doing good things but gets plenty of bad ink for its conflicts, its kooks, and its shortcomings.But bad press aside, are we being too hard on Congress?According to a brand new book, the answer is “yes.” The book is titled A Case for Congress (University of Oklahoma Press, 2026) and it was authored by Frances Lee, a superb scholar at Princeton University. Frances, I should add, was a guest on this podcast a couple of years ago and helped us think more clearly about partisan polarization and its effects on Congress.I read Frances' book this summer and thought I would use this month's podcast to share those thoughts. So here we go.Read the full transcript here.

In this episode of Talk Nerdy, Cara is joined by biological anthropologist and the chair of the Department of Anthropology at Princeton University, Agustín Fuentes. They discuss his new book, Sex Is a Spectrum: The Biological Limits of the Binary. Follow Agustín: @Anthrofuentes

Algeria's pivotal role as a historic center for revolutionary and independence movements is frequently overlooked, leaving a gap in public understanding of its complex history. Architectural historian Samia Henni unpacks how the French army utilized architecture and urban planning as tools of counterinsurgency and control. The discussion exposes the shocking and lasting realities of colonial toxicity, detailing how France conducted underground and atmospheric nuclear weapons testing in the Algerian Sahara. By challenging the harmful myth that deserts are empty, this episode confronts enduring colonial legacies and the protocols of history writing.   00:00 Introduction 01:51 Addressing the Historical Knowledge Gap Around Algeria 03:51 Growing Up with the Mythology of the Revolution 05:45 Unpacking the Complexities & Duality of Scholarly Narratives 08:30 Language as a Weapon: Architecture of Counterrevolution 14:19 The Reality Behind Centers of Regroupment and Mass Relocation 19:21 From Secret Camps to Satellite Towns 25:51 Direct Contact & the Deliberate Intent to Pacify 28:46 The Design Philosophy of Colonial Housing Projects 34:34 Unmasking the Haunting Realities of Colonial Toxicity 41:17 The Epistemic Violence of Restricted Archives 45:12 Deserts Are Not Empty 49:27 Agitation, Political Space & Transnational Solidarity   She is a historian and an exhibition maker of the built, destroyed, and imagined environments. Her work addresses questions of colonization, wars, resource extraction, deserts, forced displacement, and gender dynamics. She is the author of the multi-award-winning Architecture of Counterrevolution: The French Army in Northern Algeria (gta Verlag 2017, EN; Editions B42, 2019, FR), which received the 2020 Spiro Kostof Book Award from the Society of Architectural Historians, and Colonial Toxicity: Rehearsing French Radioactive Architecture and Landscape in the Sahara (2024). She is also the editor of Deserts Are Not Empty (Columbia Books on Architecture and the City, 2022) and War Zones (gta Verlag, 2018), and the maker of exhibitions including Performing Colonial Toxicity (2023–), Discreet Violence: Architecture and the French War in Algeria (2017–2022), Archives: Secret-Défense? (2021), and Housing Pharmacology (2020). She received her PhD (with distinction, ETH Medal) in the history and theory of architecture from ETH Zurich and has taught at Princeton University, Cornell University, ETH Zurich, and Geneva University of Art and Design. In August 2024, she joined the faculty of McGill University's Peter Guo-hua Fu School of Architecture. She was born and raised in Algiers.   Connect with Samia Henni

When Congress passed the CHIPS Act in 2022, it was the first major piece of U.S. industrial policy legislation in decades and was intended to expand America's ability to manufacture the computer chips that are vital for everything from AI to phones and modern automobiles. Mike Schmidt, distinguished visitor at Princeton University's Griswold Center for Economic Policy Studies and a non-resident senior fellow at the Institute for Progress, was the first employee of the Commerce Department office tasked with turning the CHIPS Act into an actual program that is today supporting the construction of hundreds of billions of dollars of new semiconductor factories in places from Arizona and Texas to New York. Schmidt joins Lawfare Contributing Editor and host of the Security Economics podcast Peter Harrell to discuss how the CHIPS program came together, challenges in implementation, and lessons for U.S. industrial policy in other critical sectors. This episode is part of the Security Economics podcast series, in which Peter Harrell and guests explore the intersection of economics and national security, how countries manage their economies to support national security, and how they deploy economic tools in support of geopolitical objectives.To receive ad-free podcasts, become a Lawfare Material Supporter at www.patreon.com/lawfare. You can also support Lawfare by making a one-time donation at https://givebutter.com/lawfare-institute.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the first bonus episode of The Battle for Free Speech. Today, host Michael Fox speaks with Fara Dabhoiwala. He is a professor of History at Princeton University. And he's the author of the book, What is Free Speech? The History of a Dangerous Idea. That book was published in 2025 by Penguin Random House and Harvard University Press. His book, in many ways, challenges the status quo about our understanding of free speech.Professor Dabhoiwala has a wealth of knowledge on the subject of free speech and he appeared throughout this podcast series. But there were many questions we weren't able to fit into the series, in particular about the beginnings of what we understand as free speech in the United States, and the difference between free speech in the US and abroad. So today, we're bringing you Michael's conversation with him in its entirety. They spoke last fall. The Battle for Free Speech Podcast is a production of The Real News Network. Hosted by Michael Fox and Marc Steiner. GuestFara DabhoiwalaResources You can check out the full Battle for Free Speech podcast series, here.Many thanks to everyone who has supported this show.Follow The Battle For Free Speech on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.Support Michael Fox's reporting at patreon.com/mfox.Never miss an episode — sign up for The Real News newsletter at therealnews.com. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-real-news-podcast--2952221/support.Help us continue producing radically independent news and in-depth analysis by following us and becoming a monthly sustainer.Follow us on:Bluesky: @therealnews.comFacebook: The Real News NetworkTwitter: @TheRealNewsYouTube: @therealnewsInstagram: @therealnewsnetworkBecome a member and join the Supporters Club for The Real News Podcast today!

As America prepares to commemorate the 25th anniversary of September 11, many conversations will look back at the events of that day.  Scott Gibbs offers a conversation about what the past quarter century has taught us about conflict, belonging, and how Americans can build stronger connections across political, cultural, and religious differences for a better future.  Scott Gibbs is a California-licensed psychotherapist in private practice. A board member of the Existential-Humanistic Institute, he draws on clinical experience and longstanding independent scholarship to inform his writing on the roots of conflict in everyday relationships, in intimate partnerships, and across groups. His peer-reviewed work has appeared in the Journal of Humanistic Psychology. He holds degrees from Princeton University and Northwestern University.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/arroe-collins-like-it-s-live--4113802/support.

In Artifactual: Forensic and Documentary Knowing (Duke University Press, 2023), Elizabeth Anne Davis explores how Cypriot researchers, scientists, activists, and artists process and reckon with civil and state violence that led to the enduring division of the island, using forensic and documentary materials to retell and recontextualize conflicts between and within the Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot communities. Davis follows forensic archaeologists and anthropologists who attempt to locate, identify, and return to relatives the remains of Cypriots killed in those conflicts. She turns to filmmakers who use archival photographs and footage to come to terms with political violence and its legacies. In both forensic science and documentary filmmaking, the dynamics of secrecy and revelation shape how material remains such as bones and archival images are given meaning. Throughout, Davis demonstrates how Cypriots navigate the tension between an ethics of knowledge, which valorizes truth as a prerequisite for recovery and reconciliation, and the politics of knowledge, which renders evidence as irremediably partial and perpetually falsifiable. Elizabeth Anne Davis is Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University. * This episode is part of a special collaboration between the New Books Network and the Society for the Anthropology of Europe, a section of the American Anthropological Association. Together, we're highlighting exciting new work in Europeanist anthropology—featuring authors from across the field, including winners of the William A. Douglass Book Prize and contributors to the European Anthropology in Translation series published by Berghahn Books. 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

While many know that Mark Twain created some of the most famous characters in literature—Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, Jim and Puddn'head Wilson—too few have understood that the Missouri author wasn't only America's greatest humorist, but also one of its most subtle political thinkers. But what was the political philosophy of the elusive and ironic Mark Twain for his new democratic America? To help answer that question, as we continue Season 6, I have as our guest Ivan Kenneally. A contributor to The New Atlantis and First Things, among other publications, he wrote an essay for The Hedgehog Review on modern reactions to Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), titled: “Mark Twain's Absurd, Noble America,” which we will be discussing today. We also talk about the travels of the two runaways Huck and Jim, along with their many disguises and rouses, how Americans like Tom Sawyer read European literature too dogmatically, the conmen Twain depicts in the Duke and Dauphin, technical versus tacit knowledge in his memoir Life on the Mississippi, contemporary interest in Twain from Ron Chernow and Percival Everett, the nature of irony as well as the poverty of modern comedy, and what philosophers and comedians alike can learn from the Missouri author and philosopher. Hosted by Ryan Shinkel, Madison's Notes is the podcast of Princeton University's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. The transcript for this interview is available on the JMP substack page, “Madison's Footnotes. 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

While many know that Mark Twain created some of the most famous characters in literature—Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, Jim and Puddn'head Wilson—too few have understood that the Missouri author wasn't only America's greatest humorist, but also one of its most subtle political thinkers. But what was the political philosophy of the elusive and ironic Mark Twain for his new democratic America? To help answer that question, as we continue Season 6, I have as our guest Ivan Kenneally. A contributor to The New Atlantis and First Things, among other publications, he wrote an essay for The Hedgehog Review on modern reactions to Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), titled: “Mark Twain's Absurd, Noble America,” which we will be discussing today. We also talk about the travels of the two runaways Huck and Jim, along with their many disguises and rouses, how Americans like Tom Sawyer read European literature too dogmatically, the conmen Twain depicts in the Duke and Dauphin, technical versus tacit knowledge in his memoir Life on the Mississippi, contemporary interest in Twain from Ron Chernow and Percival Everett, the nature of irony as well as the poverty of modern comedy, and what philosophers and comedians alike can learn from the Missouri author and philosopher. Hosted by Ryan Shinkel, Madison's Notes is the podcast of Princeton University's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. The transcript for this interview is available on the JMP substack page, “Madison's Footnotes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

While many know that Mark Twain created some of the most famous characters in literature—Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, Jim and Puddn'head Wilson—too few have understood that the Missouri author wasn't only America's greatest humorist, but also one of its most subtle political thinkers. But what was the political philosophy of the elusive and ironic Mark Twain for his new democratic America? To help answer that question, as we continue Season 6, I have as our guest Ivan Kenneally. A contributor to The New Atlantis and First Things, among other publications, he wrote an essay for The Hedgehog Review on modern reactions to Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), titled: “Mark Twain's Absurd, Noble America,” which we will be discussing today. We also talk about the travels of the two runaways Huck and Jim, along with their many disguises and rouses, how Americans like Tom Sawyer read European literature too dogmatically, the conmen Twain depicts in the Duke and Dauphin, technical versus tacit knowledge in his memoir Life on the Mississippi, contemporary interest in Twain from Ron Chernow and Percival Everett, the nature of irony as well as the poverty of modern comedy, and what philosophers and comedians alike can learn from the Missouri author and philosopher. Hosted by Ryan Shinkel, Madison's Notes is the podcast of Princeton University's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. The transcript for this interview is available on the JMP substack page, “Madison's Footnotes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/political-science

In Artifactual: Forensic and Documentary Knowing (Duke University Press, 2023), Elizabeth Anne Davis explores how Cypriot researchers, scientists, activists, and artists process and reckon with civil and state violence that led to the enduring division of the island, using forensic and documentary materials to retell and recontextualize conflicts between and within the Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot communities. Davis follows forensic archaeologists and anthropologists who attempt to locate, identify, and return to relatives the remains of Cypriots killed in those conflicts. She turns to filmmakers who use archival photographs and footage to come to terms with political violence and its legacies. In both forensic science and documentary filmmaking, the dynamics of secrecy and revelation shape how material remains such as bones and archival images are given meaning. Throughout, Davis demonstrates how Cypriots navigate the tension between an ethics of knowledge, which valorizes truth as a prerequisite for recovery and reconciliation, and the politics of knowledge, which renders evidence as irremediably partial and perpetually falsifiable. Elizabeth Anne Davis is Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University. * This episode is part of a special collaboration between the New Books Network and the Society for the Anthropology of Europe, a section of the American Anthropological Association. Together, we're highlighting exciting new work in Europeanist anthropology—featuring authors from across the field, including winners of the William A. Douglass Book Prize and contributors to the European Anthropology in Translation series published by Berghahn Books. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/middle-eastern-studies

This recording with Tom Griffiths is from our Secure AI seminar series, hosted in May 2026. Tom Griffiths is a professor of psychology and computer science at Princeton University and co-author of Algorithms to Live By, which explores how computational thinking can illuminate human judgment and decision-making. In this talk, Tom applies the tools of cognitive science to map the jagged edges of AI capability: the areas where AI dramatically outperforms human cognition, and the areas where it fails in ways human cognizers typically do not. He argues that understanding the precise shape of this frontier is essential for anyone building systems that combine human and AI judgment.If you want to join future seminars live, the schedule is at foresight.org and in our Luma calendar. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In Artifactual: Forensic and Documentary Knowing (Duke University Press, 2023), Elizabeth Anne Davis explores how Cypriot researchers, scientists, activists, and artists process and reckon with civil and state violence that led to the enduring division of the island, using forensic and documentary materials to retell and recontextualize conflicts between and within the Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot communities. Davis follows forensic archaeologists and anthropologists who attempt to locate, identify, and return to relatives the remains of Cypriots killed in those conflicts. She turns to filmmakers who use archival photographs and footage to come to terms with political violence and its legacies. In both forensic science and documentary filmmaking, the dynamics of secrecy and revelation shape how material remains such as bones and archival images are given meaning. Throughout, Davis demonstrates how Cypriots navigate the tension between an ethics of knowledge, which valorizes truth as a prerequisite for recovery and reconciliation, and the politics of knowledge, which renders evidence as irremediably partial and perpetually falsifiable. Elizabeth Anne Davis is Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University. * This episode is part of a special collaboration between the New Books Network and the Society for the Anthropology of Europe, a section of the American Anthropological Association. Together, we're highlighting exciting new work in Europeanist anthropology—featuring authors from across the field, including winners of the William A. Douglass Book Prize and contributors to the European Anthropology in Translation series published by Berghahn Books. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/anthropology

In Artifactual: Forensic and Documentary Knowing (Duke University Press, 2023), Elizabeth Anne Davis explores how Cypriot researchers, scientists, activists, and artists process and reckon with civil and state violence that led to the enduring division of the island, using forensic and documentary materials to retell and recontextualize conflicts between and within the Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot communities. Davis follows forensic archaeologists and anthropologists who attempt to locate, identify, and return to relatives the remains of Cypriots killed in those conflicts. She turns to filmmakers who use archival photographs and footage to come to terms with political violence and its legacies. In both forensic science and documentary filmmaking, the dynamics of secrecy and revelation shape how material remains such as bones and archival images are given meaning. Throughout, Davis demonstrates how Cypriots navigate the tension between an ethics of knowledge, which valorizes truth as a prerequisite for recovery and reconciliation, and the politics of knowledge, which renders evidence as irremediably partial and perpetually falsifiable. Elizabeth Anne Davis is Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University. * This episode is part of a special collaboration between the New Books Network and the Society for the Anthropology of Europe, a section of the American Anthropological Association. Together, we're highlighting exciting new work in Europeanist anthropology—featuring authors from across the field, including winners of the William A. Douglass Book Prize and contributors to the European Anthropology in Translation series published by Berghahn Books. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/archaeology

While many know that Mark Twain created some of the most famous characters in literature—Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, Jim and Puddn'head Wilson—too few have understood that the Missouri author wasn't only America's greatest humorist, but also one of its most subtle political thinkers. But what was the political philosophy of the elusive and ironic Mark Twain for his new democratic America? To help answer that question, as we continue Season 6, I have as our guest Ivan Kenneally. A contributor to The New Atlantis and First Things, among other publications, he wrote an essay for The Hedgehog Review on modern reactions to Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), titled: “Mark Twain's Absurd, Noble America,” which we will be discussing today. We also talk about the travels of the two runaways Huck and Jim, along with their many disguises and rouses, how Americans like Tom Sawyer read European literature too dogmatically, the conmen Twain depicts in the Duke and Dauphin, technical versus tacit knowledge in his memoir Life on the Mississippi, contemporary interest in Twain from Ron Chernow and Percival Everett, the nature of irony as well as the poverty of modern comedy, and what philosophers and comedians alike can learn from the Missouri author and philosopher. Hosted by Ryan Shinkel, Madison's Notes is the podcast of Princeton University's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. The transcript for this interview is available on the JMP substack page, “Madison's Footnotes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

In Artifactual: Forensic and Documentary Knowing (Duke University Press, 2023), Elizabeth Anne Davis explores how Cypriot researchers, scientists, activists, and artists process and reckon with civil and state violence that led to the enduring division of the island, using forensic and documentary materials to retell and recontextualize conflicts between and within the Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot communities. Davis follows forensic archaeologists and anthropologists who attempt to locate, identify, and return to relatives the remains of Cypriots killed in those conflicts. She turns to filmmakers who use archival photographs and footage to come to terms with political violence and its legacies. In both forensic science and documentary filmmaking, the dynamics of secrecy and revelation shape how material remains such as bones and archival images are given meaning. Throughout, Davis demonstrates how Cypriots navigate the tension between an ethics of knowledge, which valorizes truth as a prerequisite for recovery and reconciliation, and the politics of knowledge, which renders evidence as irremediably partial and perpetually falsifiable. Elizabeth Anne Davis is Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University. * This episode is part of a special collaboration between the New Books Network and the Society for the Anthropology of Europe, a section of the American Anthropological Association. Together, we're highlighting exciting new work in Europeanist anthropology—featuring authors from across the field, including winners of the William A. Douglass Book Prize and contributors to the European Anthropology in Translation series published by Berghahn Books.Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In celebration of our tenth anniversary, we are bringing you a remastered edition of an episode recorded in 2018 by Dr. Walter Woodward, Connecticut State Historian Emeritus with Dr. Fiona Vernal and former Hartford History Center Program Manager Jasmin Agusto. Dr. Vernal serves on the Connecticut Explored magazine Editorial Board. She holds a BA in history from Princeton University and a PhD. from Yale University. She is an associate professor of history and Africana studies and director of EPOCH: Engaged Public, Oral, and Community Histories at the University of Connecticut. Since this episode was recorded in 2018, Vernal has recorded hundreds of oral histories with members of Greater Hartford's West Indian community. The 2018 exhibit referenced in the episode has long since come down but a new exhibit entitled "Drawn Here: Stories from Hartford's North End" is open now, September 2026 to January 17, 2027, at the Connecticut Museum of Culture & History in Hartford. The exhibit exploresthe migration history and culture of Hartford's North End through a series of original graphic novels developed by local students and professional artists. The experiences of the Irish, Italians, Eastern Europeans, Black Southerners, West Indians, Puerto Ricans, and others who have made the neighborhood their home, whether briefly or for generations, add nuance and depth to our understanding this urban neighborhood. In today's Grating the Nutmeg episode, we're going to take a deep dive with Drs. Woodward and Vernal into the 70+ year history of West Indians who made Hartford home. Be sure to go to the Connecticut Museum of Culture and History's website to plan your visit to see Drawn Here: Stories from Hartford's North End". In addition to the fabulous graphic novel artwork, the exhibit also has interesting items too. connecticutmuseum.org/exhibition/drawn-here-stories-from-hartfords-north-end/   --------------------------- Don't forget to subscribe to Connecticut Explored magazine today-our Fall issue is about to go in the mail-in your mailbox or your inbox. And please set up your monthly donation to Grating the Nutmeg at ctexplored.org so we can continue bring you new research in Connecticut history, compelling first-person stories and fresh voices. ctexplored.org/donate/ This remastered episode of Grating the Nutmeg was produced by Mary Donohue and engineered by Patrick O'Sullivan at highwattagemedia.com/   Follow Grating the Nutmeg on Facebook and Instagram. Follow executive producer Mary Donohue on Facebook and Instagram at West Hartford Town Historian. Join us in two weeks for our next episode of Grating the Nutmeg, the podcast of Connecticut history. Thank you for listening!    

Juri Seo is a Korean-born American composer and Professor of Music at Princeton University. She merges many aspects of music from the past century, in particular its expanded timbral palette and unorthodox approach to structure, with a deep love of functional tonality, counterpoint, and classical form. With its fast-changing tempi and dynamics, her music explores the serious and the humorous, the lyrical and the violent, the tranquil and the obsessive. She has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, Koussevitzky Commission, and Goddard Lieberson Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and received commissions from the Fromm Foundation, Barlow Endowment, and Tanglewood. In the interview, we talk about Juri's interest in classical forms, just intonation, and humor in music.Music: “Ostinato” and “Fugue” from Obsolete Music by Juri Seo, performed by Latitude 49 (New Amsterdam Records); Just Intonation Etudes by Juri Seo, performed by Friction Quartet; “Jack-in-the-Box” from Toy Store by Juri Seo, performed by Jinjoo Cho (Carrier Records)Follow Juri on Instagram and Facebook.juriseomusic.comFollow us on Instagram and Facebook.otherminds.orgContact us at otherminds@otherminds.org.The Other Minds Podcast is hosted and edited by Joseph Bohigian. Outro music is “Kings: Atahualpa” by Brian Baumbusch (Other Minds Records).

“There's no exit in capitalism.” — Jeremy Adelman Is that ongoing quarrel of modern politics, the battle over capitalism, just a storm in a teacup? Economic historian Jeremy Adelman thinks it might be. In The Capitalist Era, Adelman argues that all camps — left and right, Keynesian and Hayekian, socialist and libertarian — accept the unavoidability of global capitalism. There is no alternative, as Mrs Thatcher used to annoyingly say. Although Adelman, certainly no Thatcherite, isn't celebrating the apparent inevitability of our capitalist epoch. What interests Adelman is the making and unmaking of what he calls the “global mind.” The revolutionary quality of capitalism, he says, is that we now think of strangers as somehow part of our community. So when Adam Smith, the moral philosopher father of economics, drank his Chinese tea while reading of a deadly earthquake in China, he recognized that capitalism inevitably entangled our moral thoughts with our self-interest. It wasn't just economists who began to think differently of strangers. Artists as varied as Picasso, Joseph Conrad, and the photography-obsessed Émile Zola all made this moral inquiry of strangers the heart of their work. Yes, Adelman is probably right to say there's no capitalist off-ramp in our post-global economy. But capitalism's octopus-like “global mind” and its (mis)treatment of strangers should turn all economists into moral philosophers and all artists into observers of economics. Five Takeaways •       The Mind, Not the Material. Against Sven Beckert's material history (which Adelman admired and reviewed in Foreign Affairs), The Capitalist Era studies how we think about capitalism — because the thinking sets the policies, creates the attachments, fuels the wars, and builds the institutions. Capitalism, on his dating, is an eighteenth-century invention that dawns with Adam Smith's “commercial society”: the first economic system to tie strangers across the whole planet into one interdependent web — global from the very start. Its founding text is a thought experiment: Smith's gentleman of humanity, drinking Chinese tea while reading of a Chinese earthquake, asked whether he minds the deaths of thousands as much as the pain in his little finger. The marketplace entangles our moralities — and the question of whether sympathy can keep pace with self-interest has governed the global mind ever since.•       No Exit in Capitalism. For or against? A fair question with a layered answer: we are all heirs to the Marxist tradition — inequality and exploitation are inherent to interdependence, and “the propensity to be predatory coexists with the propensity to be empathetic.” But the trap is real: “there's no exit in capitalism” — leaving is so punitive that every socialist revolution has paid catastrophically, a logic Adelman calls part of “the awful cunning” of the Trump administration's economic statecraft. Keynes versus Hayek? When Andrew suggested it amounted to a family squabble — a storm in a teacup — Adelman largely agreed: both camps accept that we live inside capitalism, arguing only over how to live interdependently. No exit, though, doesn't mean no alternatives: the argument worth recovering — lost since the globalization of the 1980s was “dumped on us” — is which form of interdependence we actually want. Gramsci's interregnum, the time for monsters, is exactly when that argument matters.•       The Veil Between Strangers. The book's gallery: not only philosophers but artists — Picasso, the poets, Borges (“I have a hard time writing any book without” him) — and above all photographers, because how we think about strangers is mediated through media. Smith's verb was to see: the stranger's invisibility was the whole problem, and photography — cheap to reproduce, claiming realism — promised to remove the veil. Zola was obsessed with it; street photography made New York and London legible as cities of vice and poverty; and the Opium War photographs that reached London in the 1860s forced a scandal, because this suffering was inflicted by our own troops. But seeing bred a new problem Smith never foresaw: indifference — too many images numbing the sympathies they were meant to awaken. In today's supersaturation of digital and artificially generated strangers, the early doubters' warning compounds: market interdependence plus growing indifference between the interdependent is “a recipe for calamity.”•       Earth Hunger. The charge that capitalism is eating the planet is as old as capitalism: the era of Hobson's Imperialism named the West's insatiable appetite to conquer and carve — “earth hunger” — after the Boer War. Joseph Conrad and Roger Casement traveled the Congo River together: Conrad turned it into Heart of Darkness; Casement wrote the first great humanitarian reports — rubber for Europe's bicycles and tires, extermination for the Congolese and then Amazonians — before renouncing the crown, joining the Irish rebellion, and hanging for treason. Slavery runs through the same river: on Smith's mind from the start, the plantation bonanza's awkward foundation, with dehumanization as extraction's precondition — a through line to the 1930s. To James Crawford's vanishing earth (last week's episode), Adelman offers a friendly dissent: the earth isn't vanishing, but the accelerating metabolism of resources — extracted inhumanely for those who live there — is stressing the system. Alternatives exist; exit does not.•       Hoard the Returns, Externalize the Burdens. Adelman refuses the apocalypse chorus: end-time arguments breed cynicism — grab what you can while you can — which is precisely what turned the 1930s murderous; and the great debate the 2008 crisis should have sparked was stifled by crisis management that worked too well. “Neoliberalism” he finds overblown — the world is a mixed, messy hybrid, China neither socialist nor neoliberal — and the Thucydides Trap is a “silly metaphor”: Sparta and Athens were never as interdependent as China and the United States. Hence the closing duel: Carney versus Trump as two arguments inside the global mind about how to need strangers. Trump, the Toronto-born historian argues, is no isolationist — his is a global vision that wants to “hoard the returns and externalize the burdens,” punishing the asymmetrically dependent (Canada above all) through a predator's bilateralism whose 1930s pedigree Adelman names with discomfort. And China? Sitting on the sidelines, courting Canada, playing “an old game” of constructing and dividing markets — as old as the global mind itself. About the Guest Jeremy Adelman is the Henry Charles Lea Professor Emeritus at Princeton University and professor of history and director of the Global History Lab at the University of Cambridge. Born in Toronto and educated at Toronto, the LSE, and Oxford, he has lived and worked in seven countries. His many books include Worldly Philosopher: The Odyssey of Albert O. Hirschman and Sovereignty and Revolution in the Iberian Atlantic. The Capitalist Era: The Making—and Unmaking—of ...

Whether recovering a lost history or charting a new land, scholars and explorers alike often hit at frontiers not only of place, but also knowledge. When the evidence only goes so far, what is the right way to advance? The answer is to make a conjecture: an educated guess that discourses on what is likely the case. Historical examples range from Italian humanists stealing manuscripts from monasteries and reconstructing classical languages, to Jesuit missionaries speculating about land bridges to the Americas, and even Renaissance magicians pioneering in alchemy and astrology. This collective practice is called “conjectural history,” and its roots go far back. But how far back? To answer that question, as we continue Season 6, I have as our guest, Professor Anthony Grafton. A former president of the American Historical Association, and the Emeritus Henry Putnam University Professor of History at Princeton University, Grafton is a scholar of early modern Europe and written history, a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books and London Review of Books, and the author of many books such as The Footnote (1997) and Magus (2023). Today, we will discuss his current project on “conjectural history.” We discuss the use of conjectural versus counterfactual history, its founders in Herodotus and Thucydides, and proponents like the explorer Jose de Acosta, S.J. and the scholar Lorenzo Valla. Also discussed are Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, the birth of modern science from renaissance magic, C.S. Lewis' The Discarded Image, recent scholarship on premodern eyewitness testimony to the supernatural, the magician Henry Cornelius Agrippa, and the best lost spots of Princeton University. Hosted by Ryan Shinkel, Madison's Notes is the podcast of Princeton University's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. The transcript for this interview is available on the JMP substack page, “Madison's Footnotes. Chapter Headings: 00:00 | Introduction & What is Conjectural History 4:30 | The Scottish Enlightenment vs. the Renaissance Tradition 11:42 | Conjectural History & a Case Study: Jose de Acosta 19:30 | Theology, Science & The Renaissance 26:19 | Lorenzo Valla and the Donation of Constantine 38:19 | Conjecture, Divination, and Magic Closing | Reflections: History, Belief, and Closing Thoughts 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

Whether recovering a lost history or charting a new land, scholars and explorers alike often hit at frontiers not only of place, but also knowledge. When the evidence only goes so far, what is the right way to advance? The answer is to make a conjecture: an educated guess that discourses on what is likely the case. Historical examples range from Italian humanists stealing manuscripts from monasteries and reconstructing classical languages, to Jesuit missionaries speculating about land bridges to the Americas, and even Renaissance magicians pioneering in alchemy and astrology. This collective practice is called “conjectural history,” and its roots go far back. But how far back? To answer that question, as we continue Season 6, I have as our guest, Professor Anthony Grafton. A former president of the American Historical Association, and the Emeritus Henry Putnam University Professor of History at Princeton University, Grafton is a scholar of early modern Europe and written history, a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books and London Review of Books, and the author of many books such as The Footnote (1997) and Magus (2023). Today, we will discuss his current project on “conjectural history.” We discuss the use of conjectural versus counterfactual history, its founders in Herodotus and Thucydides, and proponents like the explorer Jose de Acosta, S.J. and the scholar Lorenzo Valla. Also discussed are Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, the birth of modern science from renaissance magic, C.S. Lewis' The Discarded Image, recent scholarship on premodern eyewitness testimony to the supernatural, the magician Henry Cornelius Agrippa, and the best lost spots of Princeton University. Hosted by Ryan Shinkel, Madison's Notes is the podcast of Princeton University's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. The transcript for this interview is available on the JMP substack page, “Madison's Footnotes. Chapter Headings: 00:00 | Introduction & What is Conjectural History 4:30 | The Scottish Enlightenment vs. the Renaissance Tradition 11:42 | Conjectural History & a Case Study: Jose de Acosta 19:30 | Theology, Science & The Renaissance 26:19 | Lorenzo Valla and the Donation of Constantine 38:19 | Conjecture, Divination, and Magic Closing | Reflections: History, Belief, and Closing Thoughts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

Whether recovering a lost history or charting a new land, scholars and explorers alike often hit at frontiers not only of place, but also knowledge. When the evidence only goes so far, what is the right way to advance? The answer is to make a conjecture: an educated guess that discourses on what is likely the case. Historical examples range from Italian humanists stealing manuscripts from monasteries and reconstructing classical languages, to Jesuit missionaries speculating about land bridges to the Americas, and even Renaissance magicians pioneering in alchemy and astrology. This collective practice is called “conjectural history,” and its roots go far back. But how far back? To answer that question, as we continue Season 6, I have as our guest, Professor Anthony Grafton. A former president of the American Historical Association, and the Emeritus Henry Putnam University Professor of History at Princeton University, Grafton is a scholar of early modern Europe and written history, a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books and London Review of Books, and the author of many books such as The Footnote (1997) and Magus (2023). Today, we will discuss his current project on “conjectural history.” We discuss the use of conjectural versus counterfactual history, its founders in Herodotus and Thucydides, and proponents like the explorer Jose de Acosta, S.J. and the scholar Lorenzo Valla. Also discussed are Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, the birth of modern science from renaissance magic, C.S. Lewis' The Discarded Image, recent scholarship on premodern eyewitness testimony to the supernatural, the magician Henry Cornelius Agrippa, and the best lost spots of Princeton University. Hosted by Ryan Shinkel, Madison's Notes is the podcast of Princeton University's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. The transcript for this interview is available on the JMP substack page, “Madison's Footnotes. Chapter Headings: 00:00 | Introduction & What is Conjectural History 4:30 | The Scottish Enlightenment vs. the Renaissance Tradition 11:42 | Conjectural History & a Case Study: Jose de Acosta 19:30 | Theology, Science & The Renaissance 26:19 | Lorenzo Valla and the Donation of Constantine 38:19 | Conjecture, Divination, and Magic Closing | Reflections: History, Belief, and Closing Thoughts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

Marilyn Marks, executive director at the Coalition for Good Governance, has long warned that Georgia's physical set-up for voting at precincts - using illuminated touch screens - violates Georgia Constitutional law by denying one's right to privacy when voting. It turns out, that's not the only way "ne'er do wells" can find out how you voted: she tipped off a Princeton University researcher that she could use Chat GPT to find out how a handful of Heard County voters voted, and he experimented with the process and took it a step further. There's just one Georgia Election Board member - MAGA-rific Salleigh Grubbs - who's even remotely concerned about this, and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger nor his director of special projects for the secretary's office, aren't at all. Are you?Marilyn joined me today to discuss the very real dangers for many voters fearful their employer, their spouse, their pastor, their students' parents (for example) can know (and potentially weaponize) how they voted, and offers some solutions to secure a voter's privacy in time for November's midterm elections.

Send us Fan MailSparked by the International Criminal Court's prosecution of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamnin Netanyahu and former Israeli defense chief Yoav Gallant for war crimes, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared in July that the United States was launching a government-wide campaign to dismantle the ICC. Richard Falk, Princeton University professor emeritus of international law and chairman of the board of trustees of the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, discusses the history of the International Criminal Court, the United States' fluctuating attitudes to the ICC and international law, why some Western member states are also reluctant to support the ICC's prosecution of Israeli leaders ,and the geopolitics behind this.

Robert P. George joins John Anderson at the ARC conference in London for a conversation that traces natural law back through Cicero and Aristotle to Martin Luther King's Letter from Birmingham Jail. He also discusses his friendship with utilitarian philosopher Peter Singer on the personhood of the unborn as evidence that serious disagreement and real friendship aren't incompatible.The conversation turns to what happens when that capacity disappears: the tribalism of social media and siloed media ecosystems, and the assassination of Charlie Kirk, which George calls a tragedy not just for Kirk's family but for civic life in the West. He warns that the U.S. may be "one more assassination away from a civil war," and argues that the way back runs through intellectual humility — a willingness to recognise one's own fallibility and to see one's opponent as a fellow citizen rather than an enemy to be destroyed.Robert P. George is an American legal scholar, political philosopher, and public intellectual. He serves as the sixth McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University.

August 22, 2026. Steve Adubato welcomes Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, Eddie S. Glaude Jr., PhD, Author of America, U.S.A.: How Race Shadows the Nation's Anniversaries, to explore the enduring impact of race on American history and identity, and how it shapes patriotism and the lived experiences of minority communities. Show 816

Michael breaks down the criminal indictment of Allen Weisselberg and the Trump Organization showcasing how rampant fraud and corruption within the company was part and parcel of the Trump business culture. But these charges are just the beginning as the Manhattan DA seeks to flip Weisselberg and ultimately hold Donald Trump accountable. Finally, Michael speaks with Dr. Eddie Glaude Jr., the Chair of Princeton University's African American Studies Department and one of this nation's foremost scholars on Black culture about the GOP's weaponization of Critical Race Theory.To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policyLearn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Statue of Liberty gets the CMS treatment. First, Colin talks with Dennis Mulligan from the National Park Service. He’s been Lady Liberty’s caretaker for almost 30 years and walked to her crown approximately 5,000 times (he did the math). Colin also talks about the improbable logistics of her creation with the journalist Elizabeth Mitchell, author of Liberty's Torch: The Great Adventure to Build The Statue of Liberty. And, scholar and poet Esther Schor joins to shine a light on the Emma Lazarus poem that gave the statue meaning that has both endured and changed over time. You know the lines, “Give me your tired, your poor…” but what else do you know about the “Mother of Exiles?” GUESTS: Dennis Mulligan: Supervisory Park Ranger for the National Park Service, The Statue of Liberty's caretaker for almost 30 years Elizabeth "Biz" Mitchell: Jounalist and author of Liberty's Torch: The Great Adventure to Build The Statue of Liberty Esther Schor: Scholar, biographer, poet, essayist and Chair of the Humanities Council at Princeton University. Her 2006 biography Emma Lazarus won the National Jewish Book Award. She has also published Bridge of Words: Esperanto and the Dream of a Universal Language and three books of poems. Music featured (in order): Liberty Fanfare – John Williams, as performed by The Boston Pops Orchestra under the direction of Keith Lockhart Song of Liberty – The Wolfe Tones American Tune – Shawn Colvin Mother of Exiles – Glenn Kaiser Statue of Liberty – Jill Sobule Huddled Masses – Shaina Taub Support the show: http://www.wnpr.org/donateSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Key takeaways from Tuesday's primaries. Senator Darlene Graham admits in a debate: “national security is not my thing.” New details are coming out about Hayden Panettiere's death. President Trump halts Iran talks, as the US gains ground in the Strait of Hormuz. Plus, a Florida student wins 40 college scholarships to attend Princeton University. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Americans are more isolated, polarized, and depressed than ever in recent memory, and yet many citizens share a deep desire for community and friendship across political lines and in new creative ways. How may we bridge that gap? To help answer that most pressing question, in Episode 2 of Season 6, I have as our guest the philosopher, essayist, and author, Ian Marcus Corbin. A graduate of Yale Divinity School and Boston College, Mr. Corbin is a senior fellow at Capita, the program director of Harvard University's Public Culture Project, and the author of To Arrive Where We Started (2026). Drawing on his book, we discuss the human longing for belonging as the way to deal with our modern crisis of loneliness. We begin with Corbin's journey from a teenage Christian punk rocker raised by hippies-turned-Pentecostals into an Ivy League philosopher working at the intersection of neurobiology and culture, and along the way, we also discuss texts from T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets to Stefan Zweig's The World of Yesterday, Plato's Symposium, Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, and Karp Polanyi's The Great Transformation, not to mention figures like Black Elk and Roger Scruton, as well as Corbin's personal friendship with Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy. Hosted by Ryan Shinkel, Madison's Notes is the podcast of Princeton University's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. The transcript for this interview is available on the JMP substack page, “Madison's Footnotes.” Chapter Headings: 1 | 00:00 Introduction and Meet Ian Marcus Corbin2 | 10:48 Loneliness and the Limits of Liberalism3 | 19:48 Soul and the Science of Belonging4 | 29:00 Cognitive Metabolism and World Decay5 | 42:30 Diotima and Zosima6 | 48:32 Corbin's friendship with Sen. Chris Murphy 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

This episode is sponsored by Gilead Sciences. Gilead had no involvement or input in the podcast content. Gilead is working to transform how cancer is treated. We are innovating with next-generation therapies, combinations, and technologies to deliver improved outcomes for people with cancer. From antibody drug conjugates and small molecules to cell therapy-based approaches, our portfolio and pipeline assets are creating new possibilities for people with cancer.Dr. Sara Tolaney, Chief of the Division of Breast Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, returns to Patient From Hell to explain the ASCENT-04/KEYNOTE-D19 study, the phase 3 trial she led as principal investigator, and what it changes for people living with metastatic triple-negative breast cancer.For years, the most effective drugs for metastatic TNBC were only available after first-line chemotherapy had already failed. The problem, as Dr. Tolaney puts it plainly, is that many patients never reach a second line of treatment at all. ASCENT-04 asked whether moving an antibody-drug conjugate to the front, paired with immunotherapy, would change that. Median progression-free survival improved from 7.8 months to 11.2 months, and treatment responses lasted significantly longer.UPDATE: Since this recorded conversation, the FDA has acted on the data discussed in this episode. On May 22, 2026, Datopotamab Deruxtecan was approved for first-line metastatic TNBC in patients who are not candidates for immunotherapy. On June 24, 2026, Sacituzumab Govitecan was approved for first-line use both as a single agent and in combination with pembrolizumab for PD-L1-positive disease (CPS ≥10). Consult with your care team for the most recent indications and availability of these treatment options.00:00 The trial that moves the best drugs first 00:31 Welcome back, Dr. Sara Tolaney 00:40 What ASCENT-04 set out to solve 02:00 Why many patients never reach second-line treatment 02:50 What PD-L1 status means for your treatment 04:12 The result: 7.8 to 11.2 months 05:29 What is an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC)? 06:33 Why TROP-2 is the target in triple-negative breast cancer 07:24 How immunotherapy works: taking the brakes off the T cell 09:01 Who was eligible for the trial 10:05 What "controlling" cancer actually means 11:44 Progression-free survival vs. duration of response 13:37 Dr. Tolaney reconsiders: what ASCENT-03 showed 15:51 How trial data reaches your oncologist's office 18:21 The testing checklist after a metastatic diagnosis 19:59 First-line treatment options today 22:27 The new paradigm: ADCs as the first-line backbone 23:51 What comes second line 25:29 Why tumor sequencing matters: somatic BRCA, TMB, trials 27:24 Twenty years of change in triple-negative breast cancer 29:28 Advice for a newly diagnosed patientSara M. Tolaney, MD, MPH is Chief of the Division of Breast Oncology and Associate Director of the Susan F. Smith Center for Women's Cancers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. She trained at Princeton University, UC San Francisco, Johns Hopkins University, and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and holds a Masters in Public Health (MPH) from Harvard University. She serves on the National Cancer Institute (NCI) Breast Cancer Steering Committee and is Vice Chair for Late-Stage Development in Breast Cancer for the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology. She was principal investigator of ASCENT-04.

Americans are more isolated, polarized, and depressed than ever in recent memory, and yet many citizens share a deep desire for community and friendship across political lines and in new creative ways. How may we bridge that gap? To help answer that most pressing question, in Episode 2 of Season 6, I have as our guest the philosopher, essayist, and author, Ian Marcus Corbin. A graduate of Yale Divinity School and Boston College, Mr. Corbin is a senior fellow at Capita, the program director of Harvard University's Public Culture Project, and the author of To Arrive Where We Started (2026). Drawing on his book, we discuss the human longing for belonging as the way to deal with our modern crisis of loneliness. We begin with Corbin's journey from a teenage Christian punk rocker raised by hippies-turned-Pentecostals into an Ivy League philosopher working at the intersection of neurobiology and culture, and along the way, we also discuss texts from T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets to Stefan Zweig's The World of Yesterday, Plato's Symposium, Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, and Karp Polanyi's The Great Transformation, not to mention figures like Black Elk and Roger Scruton, as well as Corbin's personal friendship with Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy. Hosted by Ryan Shinkel, Madison's Notes is the podcast of Princeton University's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. The transcript for this interview is available on the JMP substack page, “Madison's Footnotes.” Chapter Headings: 1 | 00:00 Introduction and Meet Ian Marcus Corbin2 | 10:48 Loneliness and the Limits of Liberalism3 | 19:48 Soul and the Science of Belonging4 | 29:00 Cognitive Metabolism and World Decay5 | 42:30 Diotima and Zosima6 | 48:32 Corbin's friendship with Sen. Chris Murphy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory

Americans are more isolated, polarized, and depressed than ever in recent memory, and yet many citizens share a deep desire for community and friendship across political lines and in new creative ways. How may we bridge that gap? To help answer that most pressing question, in Episode 2 of Season 6, I have as our guest the philosopher, essayist, and author, Ian Marcus Corbin. A graduate of Yale Divinity School and Boston College, Mr. Corbin is a senior fellow at Capita, the program director of Harvard University's Public Culture Project, and the author of To Arrive Where We Started (2026). Drawing on his book, we discuss the human longing for belonging as the way to deal with our modern crisis of loneliness. We begin with Corbin's journey from a teenage Christian punk rocker raised by hippies-turned-Pentecostals into an Ivy League philosopher working at the intersection of neurobiology and culture, and along the way, we also discuss texts from T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets to Stefan Zweig's The World of Yesterday, Plato's Symposium, Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, and Karp Polanyi's The Great Transformation, not to mention figures like Black Elk and Roger Scruton, as well as Corbin's personal friendship with Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy. Hosted by Ryan Shinkel, Madison's Notes is the podcast of Princeton University's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. The transcript for this interview is available on the JMP substack page, “Madison's Footnotes.” Chapter Headings: 1 | 00:00 Introduction and Meet Ian Marcus Corbin2 | 10:48 Loneliness and the Limits of Liberalism3 | 19:48 Soul and the Science of Belonging4 | 29:00 Cognitive Metabolism and World Decay5 | 42:30 Diotima and Zosima6 | 48:32 Corbin's friendship with Sen. Chris Murphy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/anthropology

What can rocks, fossils and meteorites teach us about the past—and could science ever bring dinosaurs back?In this episode of Wes Iseli's MagicLife Podcast, Wes and Natalie welcome geologist, author, fossil researcher and lifelong rock collector Yinan Wang. Yinan shares how finding fossils as a child led him to study geosciences at Princeton University, research gemstones using satellite imagery and help identify new species preserved in amber.We explore the real science behind Jurassic Park, whether dinosaur DNA could survive inside amber, how lasers reveal hidden details in fossils and why today's AI apps often misidentify rocks. Yinan also explains the differences between geology, mineralogy and paleontology in terms that beginners can easily understand.The conversation also covers meteorites, megalodon teeth, ethical fossil collecting, mineral rights, mining claims, crystal healing and the surprising history of gold in Virginia. Could there really be gold hiding along the hiking trails behind our house? Yinan helps us understand what we should look for!Yinan is the award-winning author of books including The 50 State Fossils, The 50 State Gems and Minerals and The 50 State Unofficial Meteorites.LEARN MORE ABOUT YINAN WANG

Progressive outsider candidate Abdul El-Sayed narrowly prevailed over establishment pick Haley Stevens to win the Democratic nomination for Michigan's open Senate seat, though AIPAC spent tens of millions of dollars to defeat him. The narrative that has emerged before and after the primary is one that stresses El-Sayed's weakness with Black and Jewish voters.As Jewish Currents senior reporter Alex Kane wrote earlier this month, Black and Jewish centrists are teaming up in key races to defeat progressive candidates, whom they portray as fixated on Palestine at the expense of their Black constituents. As Darius Jones—senior adviser to a Black centrist group called the National Black Empowerment Action Fund and longtime AIPAC operative—told Jewish Currents, “Focusing on a “foreign conflict” won't “lower health care or housing costs for a Black senior in Detroit, or ensure that a path to home ownership easier for a Black constituent in St Louis or Ferguson.” These Black politicos have endeavored to link moderate Democratic policies and Black interests; reflecting on El-Sayed's attacks on the Democratic establishment, for example, party strategist Jamal Simmons told The Hill that such “attacks on the Democratic establishment in places like Detroit are attacks on Black leaders.” Meanwhile, moderates and conservatives across the country appear intent on pushing the narrative that democratic socialism is the province of privileged white people, pointing to the demographics of the group's membership and the class backgrounds of Mayor Zohran Mamdani's staffers and advisers. To discuss the ways that the figure of the “Black voter” is being used in the fight over the direction of the Democratic Party, host Arielle Angel and Alex Kane welcome Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor—professor of African American studies at Princeton University, author of From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation, and a co-founder of the digital magazine Hammer & Hope—to On the Nose. They discuss the role of Israel/Palestine in Black politics, the fallacy that Black voters are more moderate on the issues, and what to do with DSA's demographic problem.Thanks to Jules Natt for editing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”Media Mentioned and Further Reading“The End of Black Politics,” Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, The New York Times“Donald Trump's Victory, the Elitism of Democrats, and the Need to Build a Hospitable Left,” Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor and Daniel Denvir, Hammer & Hope“With Jewish Establishment's Help, a Black Political Group Battles the Left,” Alex Kane, Jewish Currents“An Anti-AIPAC Insurgent Tests Her Message in a Working-Class Stronghold,” Alex Kane, Jewish Currents“The Congressional Black Caucus's Silent Partnership With AIPAC,” Anthony Conwright, The Nation“Can Abdul El-Sayed unite Dems? He has work to do with Black, Jewish voters,” Simon D. Schuster, Bridge Michigan“Who Is Abdul El-Sayed? His Harsh Trump Takedown Is a Clue,” Daily Blast with Greg Sargent, The New Republic“El-Sayed faces ‘risky bet' with Michigan's Black voters,” Amie Parnes and Caroline Vakil, The Hill“NYC-DSA is 60% white, internal survey says,” Peter Sterne, City & State“How ‘Pro-Israel' Orthodoxy Keeps US Foreign Policymaking White,” Peter Beinart, Jewish Currents“Valerie Foushee ‘Will Not Accept' AIPAC Money in 2026 Election,” Chase Pelligrini de Paur, Indy“The Revolutionary Imperative,” Neil Smith, AntipodeSiena University poll of DSA favorability“Most Americans Say Policing Needs 'Major Changes,'” Steve Crabtree, Gallup“AOC and Mamdani wanted to defund the police. Their backtracking puts organizers at risk,” Derecka Purnell, The Guardian“Movement for Black Lives opposes George Floyd Justice in Policing Act,” AP“Eliot Engel, Jamaal Bowman, and the CBC,” Alexander Sammon, The American ProspectCommunists in Harlem During the Depression by Marc NaisonThe New Jim Crow by Michelle AlexanderTranscript forthcoming.

Robert Wright joins Michael Shermer to discuss his new book, The God Test: Artificial Intelligence and Our Coming Cosmic Reckoning, and why he thinks the AI revolution may be moving much faster than most people realize. Wright argues that deep learning is not just a new way of programming computers. In an important sense, it resembles evolution: neural networks discover solutions for themselves, sometimes recreating cognitive functions that natural selection built into human brains. That helps explain why AI capabilities have advanced so quickly, and why increasingly autonomous systems and recursive self-improvement could accelerate the process even further. Shermer presses Wright on what all of this actually means. Does an AI understand what it says? Could it be conscious? Why would a superintelligence ever seek power? Is human extinction a realistic possibility, or science-fiction doomerism? They discuss AI deception and theory of mind, John Searle's Chinese Room, bioweapons and cyberattacks, the risk of a U.S.-China AI arms race, regulation, surveillance, and the growing concentration of power in governments and tech companies. The conversation ends with Wright's larger philosophical question: if humanity really is building something with godlike power, what kind of god are we going to build, and are we mature enough to survive it? Robert Wright is the New York Times bestselling author of The Evolution of God (a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), Nonzero, The Moral Animal, and Three Scientists and their Gods (a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award). He has taught at the University of Pennsylvania and at Princeton University, where he also created the popular online course "Buddhism and Modern Psychology." He is currently Visiting Professor of Science and Religion at Union Theological Seminary in New York.