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How do you engage with others in a polarized society? Early 19-century writer and freethinker Frances “Fanny” Wright offers an ostensible how-to manual in the witty didactic novel she penned at age 19, A Few Days in Athens. Wright’s radical ideas garnered her the praise of Thomas Jefferson, the Marquis de Lafayette and Walt Whitman, to name a few, but detractors dubbed her “The Red Harlot of Infidelity.” Tristra Yeager and Eleanor Rust, hosts of the 2024 podcast “Frances Wright: America’s Forgotten Radical,” join us to discuss Wright’s historical importance and relevance to today’s political and cultural conversations.

Mentioned in this episode:

“Frances Wright: America’s Forgotten Radical” podcast

A Few Days in Athens by Frances Wright

Views of Society and Manners in America by Frances Wright

Frances Wright’s grave in Spring Grove Cemetery

The Marquis de Lafayette

Thomas Jefferson

Walt Whitman

Epicurus

The Stoics

New Harmony, Indiana

Robert Owen

Robert Dale Owen

Nashoba Community

Shaker Village in Pleasant Hill, KY

The Scottish Enlightenment

The Second Great Awakening

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