Eclectic Intellection

In this episode, we discuss the legacy of Al-Andalus, Spanish colonialism in Morocco, and, more broadly, how ideas travel from one context to another. My guest is Eric Calderwood, who is an Associate Professor in the Program in Comparative and World Literature at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. We will focus on his recent book Colonial al-Andalus: Spain and the Making of Modern Moroccan Culture (Harvard University Press, 2018). More information about the book can be found here: https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674980327.

In this episode, we discuss the Socratic question in Plato's Euthyphro. When Socrates asked "what is," what exactly was he asking? Did he try to capture some type of essence, or something else? My guest is David Ebrey, who is currently a Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter, which is similar to an Assistant Professor, at Humboldt University in Berlin. More specifically, we will focus on his 2017 article "Identity and Explanation in the Euthyphro", which was published in Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy (volume 52, pages 77-111). The article could be found here: https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780198805762.001.0001/oso-9780198805762-chapter-3.

This episode extends the previous discussion on historiography by focusing on two key questions in this field: What is usually left out of the writing of history? And is there a way to productively address the imbalance between the included and excluded elements in the writing of history? My guest is Ethan Kleinberg, who is the Class of 1958 Distinguished Professor and the Chair of the Department of History at Wesleyan University. This conversation is centered on his book Haunting History: For a Deconstructive Approach to the Past, which was published by Stanford University Press in 2017.

In this episode, we discuss the main argument in Plato's Euthyphro, as well as the problem of definition more broadly. My guest is John Brown, who is an Associate Professor Emeritus in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Maryland. We will focus on his seminal 1964 article "The Logic of the Euthyphro 10A-11B," The Philosophical Quarterly 14 (1964): 1-13. For more on Professor Brown's work, visit http://faculty.philosophy.umd.edu/jhbrown/

In this episode, we discuss the intersection between postmodernism and Orientalism. My guest is Ian Almond, who is a Professor of World Literature at Georgetown University in Qatar. We will focus on his 2007 book The New Orientalists: Postmodern Representations of Islam from Foucault to Baudrillard, which was published by I. B. Tauris.

In this episode, we discuss the intersection between Orientalist philology and Mediterranean history. My guest is Karla Mallette, who is a Professor of Italian and Mediterranean Studies and the Director of the Global Islamic Studies Center at the University of Michigan. On July 1, 2020, Professor Mallette will complete her tenure as the Director of the Global Islamic Studies Center and become the Chair of the Department of Middle East Studies at the University of Michigan. We will focus on her 2010 book European Modernity and the Arab Mediterranean: Toward a New Philology and a Counter-Orientalism, which was published by the University of Pennsylvania Press.

This episode deals with the intellectual, religious, and political movement known as Traditionalism. My guest is Mark Sedgwick, who is one of the most prominent scholars working on Traditionalism today. We will focus on his 2004 book Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century, which was published by Oxford University Press.

In this episode, we discuss the ethnological and cinematic work of the great French filmmaker Jean Rouch, whose long career in West Africa spanned from the early 1940s to 2004. My guest is Paul Stoller, who is himself a prominent anthropologist with an extensive experience in West Africa - and who had personally met Jean Rouch both in West Africa and in France. We focus on Dr. Stoller's 1992 book The Cinematic Griot: The Ethnography of Jean Rouch, which was published by the University of Chicago Press, and we talk more broadly about why Rouch remains so relevant today.

Is it possible to live a simple, good life in these difficult times? And what role does frugality play in simple living? In this conversation, I discuss frugality with Dr. Emrys Westacott. We focus on his 2016 book, The Wisdom of Frugality: Why Less is More - More or Less, which was published by Princeton University Press.

This discussion focuses on Eelco Runia's book Moved by the Past: Discontinuity and Historical Mutation, which was published in 2014 by Columbia University Press. We also talked about Tolstoy's War and Peace, and more broadly about the connections between history and the present.