Leaves in the Wind - By David Bentley Hart

Episode #19 - A Conversation Between Philip Ball and David Bentley Hart

I spoke recently with Philip Ball, the prolific and extremely gifted writer on the sciences, principally about his recent Book How Life Works, but with occasional oblique references to other of his books, such as The Book of Minds and Beyond Weird. We discussed many things: a possible shift of paradigms in the life-sciences, the Neo-Darwinian orthodoxy, cognitive systems in organisms, xenobots, batrachian epithelial cells, medicine--and even a little metaphysics.

Philip Ball holds a degree in Chemistry and a PhD., in Physics from Oxford.

Episode #18 - A Conversation with Norman Finkelstein (the poet, that is)

I recently had a conversation with the poet and literary essayist Norman Finkelstein. The conversation touched on his work and mine, as well as on poetry, prose, dreams, gnosticism, psychotherapy, consciousness, thin places, dogs, cats, and a number of other things. I will say only that I found it all immensely enjoyable.

Episode #17 - An Interview by James Mumford

The philosopher and essayist James Mumford (and yes, for those who have heard the rumor, he is the brother of Marcus Mumford of Mumford & Sons fame) recently interviewed me for an article he was writing. The chief topic was the second edition of my translation of the New Testament, and the conversation ranged over a broad variety of topics: the absence of any opposition between grace and nature in the Apostle Paul's thought, as of any opposition between nature and supernature; the social teachings of Jesus in the synoptics, and how thoroughly obscured they can become in traditional translations; the myth of a fallen archangel called Lucifer; the nature of the Logos in the fourth gospel; the meaning of "koinōnia" in the New Testament; the "new perspective" on Paul; the eschatology of the synoptics; universalism; allegorical exegesis; Thomists and fundamentalists; the nature of inspiration in "inspired" texts; and so forth and so on.

#16 - An Interview with Ross Allen of "The Christian Century"

On nature and supernature, grace, traditionalist Thomism, resurrection bodies, socialism, mystic dogs, talking dogs...dogs...

I was interviewed many, many months back by Ross Allen for The Christian Century (which I know is quite evident from the title above, but I have to say something here), and the conversation ranged widely. A condensed version of the interview appeared recently in print in the magazine, and naturally that condensation has the effect of altering my voice (a it were); so here is the recording of the complete version.

We discussed Paul’s metaphysics, the invention of the opposition between “grace” and “nature,” the late invention of the category of “the supernatural,” the logic of deification, New Testament eschatology, the eschatological terminus of doctrinal definition, metaphysical monism, the encounters with the risen Christ in the New Testament, the social teachings and provocations of Jesus of Nazareth, Christian socialism, “National Conservatism” and Christianity, Roland’s vocabulary, whether traditional manualist Thomism is a psychopathy (yes), Roland’s mystical bent, postal deliveries, patristic allegory, allegorical readings of scripture in light of historical-critical method, my New Testament translation’s second edition, exogenous gentile olive trees, Roland’s ability to pronounce the consonant “y,” and ever so much more.

Episode #15 - A Conversation Between Eugene McCarraher, PhD., and David Bentley Hart

I recently conducted a conversation with the spry and sprightly Eugene McCarraher, Associate Professor of Humanities at Villanova and author of The Enchantments of Mammon: How Capitalism Became the Religion of Modernity. We ranged widely but not erratically over a number of topics (enchantment and disenchantment, Mammon, "Thomism," capitalism, Christian socialism, Ruskin and Morris and Tawney, Marxism, transhumanism, Romanticism, universalism--inter alia), and on the whole a good time was had by all.

Excuse the raspiness of my voice. As has been documented with tedious frequency, since 2014 I have suffered from an inflammatory pulmonary condition, and the smoke from the Canadian wildfires had been aggravating the condition for three days when this was recorded.

[email protected].

#14 - A Conversation Between Iain McGilchrist and David Bentley Hart

On the mind, the structure of the brain, the structure of life, the arts, perceptions of reality, the pervasiveness of consciousness...

Scientist, physician, psychiatrist, writer, literary scholar, and philosopher Iain McGilchrist (PhD.,) is as genial as his work is fascinating. As anyone familiar with his books could attest, this conversation no more than grazes the surface of his thought; but it was, to my mind, a rich and absorbing conversation nevertheless. He is, moreover, almost aggressively sane.

https://davidbentleyhart.substack.com

Dr. Iain McGilchrist is best known for his groundbreaking brain hemisphere research, integrating this with epistemology, sociology, and metaphysics. His central claim is that the brain’s hemispheres don't merely perform different tasks, but disclose reality in fundamentally different ways.

The Master and His Emissary argues Western culture privileges reductive left-hemisphere cognition over holistic right-hemisphere perception.

The Matter with Things develops this into a metaphysical critique of materialism, defending consciousness, embodiment, and relational reality. McGilchrist’s work reframes hemispheric specialization, psychiatry, cognition, and phenomenological metaphysics.

On prose styles, Artificial Intelligence, consciousness, materialism, disenchantment and re-enchantment, animal minds...

When the novelist, essayist, and political theorist China Miéville and I last spoke, we left a few topics hanging, and so we resolved to return and address them later. This time we were joined by China’s fellow editor at the journal Salvage, Richard Seymour, essayist, cultural critic, political philosopher—et cetera. It was a great pleasure for me, I have to say, to waste time with two interlocutors at once so intelligent and so deeply humane.

Several readers of my Substack journal Leaves in the Wind, as well as some viewers of this, its podcast emanation, have expressed their desire that I record another conversation with the novelist (and all-around good egg) Salley Vickers, revisiting some of the themes we merely touched lightly upon the first time around. I found this a very pleasant request to grant.

David Armstrong writes a delightful Substack newsletter called "A Perennial Digression," for which he also recorded several interviews, available online (somewhere), and he has kindly provided me copies of the four interviews he recorded with me.

Episode #10 - A Conversation Between Peter O'Leary and David Bentley Hart

On Gnosticism, visionary poetry, cats, dragons, Gnosticism, green children, green men, the Kalevala, Finnish culture....

I recently recorded a conversation with the effervescent poet Peter O’Leary. I chiefly wanted to talk to him about his fascination with Gnostic imagery, but of course these exchanges take on a life of their own. We did in fact spend a good deal of time discussing Gnosticism, ancient and modern, but a number of other topics came up as well, many of which are listed above, and many of which (Herbert Read, Yeats, the correct pronunciation of Greek, whether Greek and Latin stems should ever be combined in English words, Ronald Johnson, and so forth) are listed in parentheses just there ←. A good time was had by all: the two of us, the cat, the dragon…. Roland, unfortunately, was unable to attend, as he was delivering a paper at a conference in Kyoto.