There are a number of ways that one could describe Tonya K. Davidson’s new book, Ottawology. On one level, it’s a synthesis of sociological theory and research about Canada’s capital. It is also to some extent a map of the vital tensions that we find in all cities. At yet another level, it's a book that helps its readers perceive the richness of urban life, and every city’s potential to nourish both individuals and society.

Davidson is an associate professor of sociology in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Carleton University in Ottawa. 

The final passage heard in the episode is from Tara Milbrandt’s chapter of Seasonal Sociology.

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Annie Dillard is verbally vibrant and deadly in description. But it’s the nature of the solstice season too, impeccably balanced, a knife’s edge of mortality and vitality. 

Passages featured in this solstice reading bonus episode are from Dillard’s Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (1974) and The Writing Life (1989).

A great work, like a great river, has many tributaries. In the case of Plato’s Republic, American classicist James Romm divines one such buried stream, exploring Plato’s encounters with tyranny on his several trips to the Greek West. Romm’s 2025 book is Plato and the Tyrant: The Fall of Greece’s Greatest Dynasty and the Making of a Philosophic Masterpiece.

Passages from Plato’s Seventh Letter are from Jonah Radding’s translation, found in Heather L. Reid and Mark Ralkowski’s Plato at Syracuse. Passages from Plato’s Republic are from Allan Bloom’s translation.

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Ed Broadbent’s political thought and action was based on a desire for a fuller and richer democratic life, and a basic respect for his fellow Canadians. In one of his final years, Broadbent wrote that his political task had been “to communicate a social democratic vision to ordinary Canadians,” providing tangible improvements to their lives in the process.

Amongst Broadbent’s co-authors for his final major publication was Frances Abele. Abele is Distinguished Research Professor and Chancellor’s Professor Emerita at Carleton University’s School of Public Policy & Administration. Her 2023 book with Ed Broadbent, Jonathan Sas and Luke Savage is Seeking Social Democracy: Seven Decades in the Fight for Equality.

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Democracy is both a lofty ideal and a humble collection of practices, institutions and dispositions. 

Dave Moscrop’s writing travels between these two poles. Moscrop brings gentleness to his judgment of individual democratic decision-makers and an urgency to the overall project of elevating our democracy.

Dave Moscrop is a commentator on politics for TV, radio and print, his writing appearing in a range of Canadian, American and British publications. His 2019 book is Too Dumb for Democracy? Why We Make Bad Political Decisions and How We Can Make Better Ones.

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Dennis Lee's poems sound the depths of human interiority, but also show that interiority has external (and political) correlates.

The poems featured in this summer reading bonus episode are collected in Lee's 2017 book, Heart Residence.

For Andrew Coyne, Canadian democracy has become more ceremony than substance. His 2025 book The Crisis of Canadian Democracy maps the imbalances between government and Parliament, leaders and caucus, prime ministers and cabinets. And he shows the fundamental risks posed by these asymmetries, particularly as declining legitimacy diminishes action and initiative, at a moment when the country badly needs each.

Andrew Coyne writes for the Globe and Mail.

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Richard Kearney is keenly aware of the power and appeal of vision, but shows that it’s rather touch that we find at the heart of the senses, and the heart of philosophy.

Kearney’s work is profoundly ethical, and puts an emphasis on how living well entails tactful touching, with the demand that we permit ourselves to be touched even as we touch.

Richard Kearney is Charles Seelig Chair of Philosophy at Boston College, and the author of numerous books, including Touch: Recovering our Most Vital Sense.

The final passage that Kearney shares in this episode is from the conclusion of his novel Salvage.

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Human beings are forever drawn to simplify in thought what it is that makes us individuals. But there is an alternative, one that Shannon Hoff articulates in her forthcoming book How to Read Hegel Now. 

Shannon Hoff is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Memorial University. She is author of The Laws of the Spirit: A Hegelian Theory of Justice, and has published in the areas of political philosophy, feminism, and the tradition of European philosophy more broadly.

This episode concludes with a portion of the song “Clarissa in the Mirror,” written and performed by Hoff, with instrumental credits to Tania Gill and Don Scott.
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If we dig deeply into and think richly about any particular topic, we usually unearth a perspective much wider than our planned excavation.

Herodotus wrote in the fifth century BCE about the invasion of mainland Greece by Xerxes and the Persian Empire. But though he takes that conflict as focal point, his vision unfolds in all directions. 

James Romm is the author of numerous books about the ancient Greek and Roman world, including his forthcoming Plato and the Tyrant. Of note for this conversation and amongst other works on Herodotus, Romm edited and introduced Pamela Mensch's translation of the Histories, included Herodotus in his co-edited collection The Greek Histories, and wrote a book of his own on the Histories simply titled Herodotus. James Romm is James H. Ottaway Jr. Professor of Classics and Director of the Classical Studies Program at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York.

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