Her Place in Theory

In this episode, Juliette Marchant is joined by Danielle Allen, James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University and a leading scholar of political philosophy, democracy, and the American founding, to discuss the life and thought of Abigail Adams: writer, political thinker, and one of the most compelling intellectual voices of the American Revolution and early American republic.

Together, Allen and Marchant explore what it means to take Abigail Adams seriously as a political thinker in her own right, rather than simply as the wife of John Adams or a witness to the American founding. From her famous injunction to “remember the ladies” to her reflections on education, equality, political authority, and the contradictions of revolutionary liberty, the conversation examines how Adams understood the promises and limitations of the emerging American republic. Along the way, they consider the relationship between private correspondence and public political thought, the place of women in the intellectual history of democracy, and what Abigail Adams can teach us about the possibilities, exclusions, and unfinished ambitions of the American founding.

Texts Referenced in the Episode:

Correspondence between John and Abigail Adams - Massachusetts Historical Society

Abigail Adams: Letters - Edited by Edith Gelles

Radical Duke: How One Aristocrat-and the American Revolution-Transformed Britain - Danielle Allen

Justice by Means of Democracy - Danielle Allen

Our Declaration - Danielle Allen

In this episode, Juliette Marchant is joined by Jeta Mulaj, Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Toronto Metropolitan University, to discuss the work of Frigga Haug: Marxist feminist theorist, sociologist, and one of the most important thinkers of social reproduction and collective emancipation in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Together, Mulaj and Marchant explore what makes Haug’s work so enduring and generative: her critique of capitalist social relations, her theory of women’s labor and social reproduction, and her insistence that emancipation must transform everyday life as much as economic structures. From questioning the relationship between victimhood and agency, to the “four-in-one perspective,” the conversation highlights Haug as a thinker who challenged both economistic Marxism and liberal feminism, urging instead a democratic, collective reimagining of work, care, education, and human flourishing under and beyond capitalism.

Texts Referenced in the Episode:

Selected Writings of Frigga Haug on Experience, Labour, and Critique - Edited by Jeta Mulaj and Alexandra Colligs

The “Four-in-One Perspective”: A Manifesto for aMore Just Life - Frigga Haug

In this episode, Juliette Marchant is joined by Sylvana Tomaselli, Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge, and a leading scholar of the history of political thought to discuss the work of Mary Wollstonecraft: writer, philosopher, and a bold critic of the social and political conventions of her time.

Together, Tomaselli and Marchant explore what makes Wollstonecraft’s work so striking and enduring: her arguments for women’s education, her critique of inequality and dependency, and her insistence that reason and virtue—not custom or hierarchy—should shape human life. From A Vindication of the Rights of Woman to her reflections on revolution, the conversation highlights Wollstonecraft as a thinker who challenged the assumptions of her age and offered a powerful account of freedom, independence, and moral responsibility.

Texts Referenced in the Episode:

Wollstonecraft: Philosophy, Passion, and Politics - Sylvana Tomaselli

Wollstonecraft: A Vindication of the Rights of Men and a Vindication of the Rights of Woman and Hints - Edited by Sylvana Tomaselli

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Mary Wollstonecraft

The Collected Letters of Mary Wollstonecraft - Mary Wollstonecraft edited by Janet Todd

Reflections on the Revolution in France - Edmund Burke

Emile or On Education - Jean-Jacques Rousseau

In this episode, Juliette Marchant is joined by Michael Dango, Associate Professor of English at Rice University, to discuss the work of Lauren Berlant: an interdisciplinary theorist of affect, intimacy, and political life, and one of the most original and influential thinkers of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

Together, they trace Berlant’s intellectual arc, from their earlywork on national fantasy and citizenship to later writings on affect, precarity, and the ordinary, while reflecting on the attachments and everyday forms through which political life is lived. From The Anatomy of National Fantasy and The Queen of America Goes to Washington City to Cruel Optimism, the conversation highlights Berlant’s distinctive method and the enduring force of concepts that illuminate how what sustains us can also hold us in place.

Texts Referenced in the Episode:

The Queen of America Goes to Washington City - Lauren Berlant

The Anatomy of National Fantasy: Hawthorne, Utopia, and Everyday Life - Lauren Berlant

The Female Complaint: The Unfinished Business of Sentimentality in American Culture - Lauren Berlant

Cruel Optimism - Lauren Berlant

On the Inconvenience of Other People - Lauren Berlant

Sex in Public - Lauren Berlant and Michael Warner

Genre Flailing - Lauren Berlant

Crisis Style: The Aesthetics of Repair - Michael Dango

Madonna's Erotica - Michael Dango

In this episode, Juliette Marchant is joined by Bernard Yack, Lerman-Neubauer Professor of Democracy and Political Science at Brandeis University, to discuss the work of Judith Shklar: political theorist, historian of ideas, and one of the most incisive liberal thinkers of the twentieth century.

Together, Yack and Marchant explore what makes Shklar’s work so bracing and enduring: “the liberalism of fear,” her insistence that cruelty is the worst political evil, and her distinctive approach to injustice, hypocrisy, and exile. From Ordinary Vices to The Faces of Injustice, the conversation highlights Shklar as a thinker who challenged both complacent liberal optimism and abstract moralism, urging instead a vigilant, historically grounded defense of freedom against the ever-present dangers of cruelty and abuse of power.

Texts Referenced in the Episode:

Nationalism and the Moral Psychology of Community - Bernard Yack

The Problems of a Political Animal - Bernard Yack

Liberalism without Illusions - Edited by Bernard Yack

Legalism - Judith Shklar

The Liberalism of Fear - Judith Shklar

The Faces of Injustice - Judith Shklar

Ordinary Vices - Judith Shklar

After Utopia: The Decline of Political Faith - Judith Shklar

Who Needs a Theory of Justice? Judith Shklar and the Politics of Injustice - Robin Douglass

In this episode, Juliette Marchant is joined by Aurelian Craiutu, Arthur F. Bentley Professor of Political Science at Indiana University, Bloomington, to discuss the work of Elinor Ostrom — Nobel Prize–winning political economist and one of the most original thinkers about governance in the late twentieth century.

Together, Craiutu and Marchant explore what makes Ostrom’s work so enduring and provocative: her challenge to the conventional state-versus-market dichotomy, her theory of polycentric governance, and her insistence that ordinary citizens are capable of self-government. From Governing the Commons to the broader intellectual legacy of the Bloomington School, the episode highlights Ostrom as a thinker who redefined how we understand collective action, institutional diversity, and the fragile art of making democracy work.

Texts Referenced in the Episode:

Liberalism under Siege: The Political Thought of the French Doctrinaires  - Aurelian Craiutu

A Virtue for Courageous Minds: Moderation in French Political Thought, 1748-1830 - Aurelian Craiutu

Faces of Moderation: The Art of Balance in an Age of Extremes - Aurelian Craiutu

Why Not Moderation? Letters to Young Radicals - Aurelian Craiutu

Governing the Commons - Elinor Ostrom

Beyond Markets and States: Polycentric Governance of Complex Economic Systems (Nobel Prize Lecture) - Elinor Ostrom

Actual World, Possible Future - Short Documentary

The Tragedy of the Commons - Garrett Hardin

In this episode, Juliette Marchant is joined by Gina Schouten, Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University, to discuss the work of Marilyn Frye - feminist philosopher and one of the most influential thinkers on oppression in the late twentieth century.

Together, Schouten and Marchant explore what makes Frye’s work so enduring and incisive: her account of oppression as a systematic and structural phenomenon, her attention to the everyday realities of gendered power, and her groundbreaking analysis of the politics of emotions, particularly anger and resentment. From The Politics of Reality to Frye’s reflections on responsibility, solidarity, and feminist consciousness, the episode highlights Frye as a thinker whose ideas continue to shape how we understand power, emotion, and resistance in contemporary political life.

Texts Referenced in the Episode:

The Anatomy of Justice: On the Shape, Substance, and Power of Liberal Egalitarianism - Gina Schouten

Liberalism, Neutrality, and the Gendered Division of Labor - Gina Schouten

The Politics of Reality: Essays in Feminist Theory - Marilyn Frye

The Uses of Anger - Audre Lorde

The Aptness of Anger - Amia Srinivasan

In this episode, Juliette Marchant is joined by Kristin Gjesdal, Professor of Philosophy at Temple University, to discuss the life and thought of Clara Zetkin - Marxist theorist, communist activist, and one of the founders of the Social Democratic Women’s Movement in Germany.

Together, Gjesdal and Marchant examine what makes Zetkin’s work so distinctive and urgent: her commitment to women’s liberation as inseparable from class struggle, her attention to the lived realities of women workers, and her powerful analysis of fascism as a mass political movement. From socialist feminism and International Women’s Day to anti-fascism, racism, and political steadfastness in dark times, the episode highlights Zetkin as an unruly thinker whose ideas continue to challenge and illuminate contemporary political life.

Texts Referenced in the Episode:

Opprørerne: Kvinner som endret filosofien - Kristin Gjesdal

Rebellinnen der Philosophie - Kristin Gjesdal

The Oxford Handbook of Nineteenth-Century Women Philosophers in the German Tradition - Dalia Nassar and Kristin Gjesdal

Women Philosophers in the Long Nineteenth Century: The German Tradition - Dalia Nassar and Kristin Gjesdal

In this episode, Juliette Marchant is joined by Joshua Cherniss, Associate Professor of Government at Georgetown University, to discuss the political thought of Nancy Rosenblum, the Harvard University Senator Joseph Clark Professor of Ethics in Politics and Government emerita. The conversation weaves together Cherniss’s intellectual journey with an account of Rosenblum’s influence as a teacher and mentor, and how her work shaped his approach to political ethics and liberal theory.

Together, Cherniss and Marchant explore what makes Rosenblum’s work so influential: her focus on the personal experience of liberalism, her attention to motivationand everyday moral life, and her insistence on grounding political theory in psychological and sociological realism. From pluralism and shifting involvements to neighborly relations and the democracy of everyday life, the episode highlights a vision of liberalism that is lived, complex, and deeply human.

Texts Referenced in the Episode:

Another Liberalism: Romanticism and the Reconstruction of Liberal Thought - Nancy L. Rosenblum

Good Neighbors: The Democracy of Everyday Life in America - Nancy L. Rosenblum

Liberalism and the Moral Life - Edited by Nancy L. Rosenblum

Liberalism without Illusions: Essays on Liberal Theory and the Political Vision of Judith N. Shklar - Edited by Bernard Yack

A Mind and Its Time: The Development of Isaiah Berlin's Political Thought - Joshua L. Cherniss

Liberalism in Dark Times: The Liberal Ethos in the Twentieth Century - Joshua L. Cherniss

In this episode, Juliette Marchant is joined by Duncan Ivison—Professor of Political Philosophy and President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Manchester—to talk about the formidable Martha Nussbaum: philosopher, public intellectual, and one of the key architects of the capabilities approach.

Whether she’s breathing new life into questions first posed by the ancients, advancing a passionate defence of liberal education, or offering rich reflections on the politics of emotion, Nussbaum has achieved an extraordinary amount in her career so far. This episode provides an energising and insightful look at why her ideas continue to challenge, inspire and provoke contemporary academic and popular audiences today.

Texts Referenced in the Episode:

The Fragility of Goodness - Martha Nussbaum

Tragedy and Justice: Bernard Williams Remembered - Martha Nussbaum

Women and Human Development: The Capabilities Approach - Martha Nussbaum

Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education - Martha Nussbaum

Postcolonial Liberalism - Duncan Ivison

Political Theory and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples - Edited by Duncan Ivison, Paul Patton and Will Sanders