Adam Shatz talks separately to three guests – Judith Butler, Pankaj Mishra and Brent Hayes Edwards – about some of the most revolutionary thought of the 20th century.
Judith, Pankaj and Brent will each discuss four texts over four episodes, as they uncover the inner life of the 20th century through works that have sought to find freedom in different ways and remake the world around them. They explore, among other things, the development of arguments against racism and colonialism, the experience of artistic expression in oppressive conditions and how language has been used in politically substantive ways.
Authors covered: Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Frantz Fanon, Hannah Arendt, V. S. Naipaul, Ashis Nandy, Doris Lessing, Nadezhda Mandelstam, W. E. B. Du Bois, Aimé Césaire, Amiri Baraka and Audre Lorde.
Episodes will appear once a month throughout 2024, on the 10th of each month.
Human Conditions is part of the Close Readings podcasts collection from the London Review of Books.
To listen to the full episodes, subscribe to Close Readings:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq
In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Adam Shatz talks separately to three guests – Judith Butler, Pankaj Mishra and Brent Hayes Edwards – about some of the most revolutionary thought of the 20th century.
Judith, Pankaj and Brent will each discuss four texts over four episodes, as they uncover the inner life of the 20th century through works that have sought to find freedom in different ways and remake the world around them. They explore, among other things, the development of arguments against racism and colonialism, the experience of artistic expression in oppressive conditions and how language has been used in politically substantive ways.
Authors covered: Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Frantz Fanon, Hannah Arendt, V. S. Naipaul, Ashis Nandy, Doris Lessing, Nadezhda Mandelstam, W. E. B. Du Bois, Aimé Césaire, Amiri Baraka and Audre Lorde.
Episodes will appear once a month throughout 2024, on the 10th of each month.
Human Conditions is part of the Close Readings podcasts collection from the London Review of Books.
To listen to the full episodes, subscribe to Close Readings:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq
In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
After reciting an unflattering poem about Stalin to a small group of friends, Osip Mandelstam was betrayed to the police and endured five years in exile before dying in transit to the gulag. His wife, Nadezhda, spent the rest of her life dodging arrest, advocating for Osip’s work and writing what came to be known as Hope against Hope.
Hope against Hope is a testimony of life under Stalin, and of the ways in which ordinary people challenge and capitulate to power. It’s also a compendium of gossip, an account of psychological torture, a description of the poet’s craft and a love story.
Pankaj Mishra joins Adam to discuss his final selection for Human Conditions. They explore the qualities that make Hope against Hope so compelling: Nadezhda Mandelstam’s uncompromising honesty, perceptiveness and irrepressible humour.
Non-subscriber will only hear an extract from this episode. To listen in full, and to all our other Close Readings series, sign up:
Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPq
In other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadings
Further reading in the LRB:
Seamus Heaney: Osip and Nadezhda Mandelstam
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v03/n15/seamus-heaney/osip-and-nadezhda-mandelstam
Clarence Brown: Every Slightest Pebble
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v17/n10/clarence-brown/every-slightest-pebble
Frances Stonor Saunders: The Writer and the Valet
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v36/n18/frances-stonor-saunders/the-writer-and-the-valet
Pankaj Mishra is a writer, critic and reporter who regularly contributes to the LRB. His books include Age of Anger: A History of the Present, From the Ruins of Empire: The Intellectuals Who Remade Asia and two novels, most recently Run and Hide.
Get in touch: podcasts@lrb.co.uk
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.