On this episode of Virtual Sentiments, host Kristen Collins chats with Eileen Hunt on her latest book, The First Last Man: Mary Shelley and the Postapocalyptic Imagination (2024), which focuses primarily on Mary Shelley's 1826 novel, The Last Man, the first major modern pandemic novel. Hunt explains the tragic life events that motivated Mary Shelley's darker themes*, how the novel relates to our Covid-19 experience, and more.

*This episode features conversation on topics including suicide, suicidal ideation, and death.

Eileen Hunt is a Professor of Political Science and a political theorist whose scholarly interests cover modern political thought, feminism, the family, rights, ethics of technology, and philosophy and literature. She has published five solo-authored books, including her recent trilogy on Mary Shelley and political philosophy for Penn Press.

Read more work from Kristen Collins.

Show Notes:

• 60 Words Podcast with Congresswoman Barbara Lee
• Congresswoman Barbara Lee's Speech on 9/14/01
• Max Weber's "Politics as a Vocation"
• Max Weber's The Vocation Lectures

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