Recall This Book

97* Lorraine Daston Books In Dark Times (JP)

Listen Later

Our Books in Dark Times series offered John this 2021 chance to speak with Lorraine Daston of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. Her list of publications outstrips our capacity to mention here; John particularly admires her analysis of “epistemic virtues” such as truth to nature and objectivity in her 2007 Objectivity (coauthored with Peter Galison).

Although she “came of age in an era of extreme contextualism” Daston is anything but time-bound. She starts things off in John’s wheelhouse with Henry James, before moving on to Pliny the Younger–no, not the scientist, the administrator! Then she makes a startling flanking maneuver to finish with contemporary Polish poetry. John puffs to keep up…

Discussed in this episode:

  • Henry James, Portrait of a Lady
  • (Nicole Kidman as Isabel Archer, American abroad, in Jane Campion’s Portrait of a Lady)
  • Pliny the Younger, Letters (“the very model of the good civil servant”)
  • Lisa Ford, Settler Sovereignty
  • Ovid, Tristia
  • Zbigniew Herbert, e.g. Mr. Cogito
  • Wislawa Szymborska View with a Grain of Sand
  • D. H. Lawrence, “Snake” (and other animal poems)
  • Peter Godfrey-Smith, Other Minds (“This [octopus encounter] is probably the closest we will come to meeting an intelligent alien.”)
  • George Herbert, “The Rose“
  • Olga Tokarczuk, Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead
  • Stanislaw Lem, Solaris (1961) and The Futurological Congress (1971)

    • Listen and Read:

    41 RTB Books in Dark Times 13: Lorraine Daston, Historian of Science

    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    ...more
    View all episodesView all episodes
    Download on the App Store
    Recall This BookBy Elizabeth Ferry and John Plotz
    • 4.7
    • 4.7
    • 4.7
    • 4.7
    • 4.7

    4.7

    29 ratings

    More shows like Recall This Book

    View all
    This American Life by This American Life

    This American Life

    90,979 Listeners

    Fresh Air by NPR

    Fresh Air

    38,525 Listeners

    The New Yorker Radio Hour by WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

    The New Yorker Radio Hour

    6,916 Listeners

    The Book Review by The New York Times

    The Book Review

    3,926 Listeners

    On the Media by WNYC Studios

    On the Media

    9,224 Listeners

    Political Gabfest by Slate Podcasts

    Political Gabfest

    8,465 Listeners

    The Gray Area with Sean Illing by Vox

    The Gray Area with Sean Illing

    10,713 Listeners

    New Books in Critical Theory by Marshall Poe

    New Books in Critical Theory

    148 Listeners

    The Dig by Daniel Denvir

    The Dig

    1,589 Listeners

    The Daily by The New York Times

    The Daily

    113,095 Listeners

    The Al Franken Podcast by The Al Franken Podcast

    The Al Franken Podcast

    8,596 Listeners

    The Ezra Klein Show by New York Times Opinion

    The Ezra Klein Show

    16,492 Listeners

    Ones and Tooze by Foreign Policy

    Ones and Tooze

    370 Listeners

    Past Present Future by David Runciman

    Past Present Future

    355 Listeners

    Critics at Large | The New Yorker by The New Yorker

    Critics at Large | The New Yorker

    669 Listeners