Public Intellectual

Why are women attracted to violence and brutality? Laura Elizabeth Woollett wrote a collection of short stories about this phenomenon called “The Love Of A Bad Man.” Jessa calls her to discuss these women and the misogynistic culture that helps create them.

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The fourth part in a series about the films of David Fincher and Paul Verhoeven. Jessa invites writer, Tech StartUp employee, and Harvard Alum Austin Grossman onto the show to discuss Fincher’s film about the bad men of tech, The Social Network, all the new forms of misogyny, and why Mark Zuckerberg is an asshole.

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The fifth part in a series about the films of David Fincher and Paul Verhoeven. Jessa invites Manan Ahmed, Professor of Medieval Studies at Columbia University, to discuss Fincher’s 1999 adaptation of Fight Club and the strange ways the film prophesizes the rise of the Alt Right.

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Jessa sits down with journalist, poet and filmmaker Alissa Quart to discuss the rising maternal death rates and the place limited abortion access has in those figures, and how we are in this position where abortion is technically legal, but getting one is so difficult.

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if you wanted to gauge the state of straight white men in America in the 80s and 90s, you could just watch Michael Douglas movies. The sixth part in a series about the films of David Fincher and Paul Verhoeven. Jessa calls Carmen Petaccio, PHD candidate at the University of Miami (and first official twitter guest!) onto the show to discuss Fincher's 1997 film, The Game.

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There have been a lot of white dudes who’ve taken up the task of defending the enlightenment. Women and writers of color have been offering nuanced and interesting critiques of it, pointing out that the so called “ideals” of the enlightenment were and continue to be used to justify everything from colonialism to genocide. Jessa sits down with writer John Ganz to discuss.

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The seventh part in a series about the films of Paul Verhoeven and David Fincher. Jessa invites writer Melissa Gira Grant onto the show to discuss Verhoeven's 1992 film, Basic Instinct and the very important work being done by Sharon Stone's sweaters in this very important film.

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The eighth part in a series about the films of Paul Verhoeven and David Fincher. Jessa invites film critic Sheila O'Malley onto the show to discuss Verhoeven's 1990 film, Total Recall, and the masculine need to save and protect and triumph as the hero.

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Remember when people were desperately trying to find a silver lining to the Trump presidency and what they came up with is that “the art will be good?” This situation has brought forward all the old debates on whether art and writing should be political. Jessa invites writer Natalie Hopkinson onto the show to discuss.

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Pankaj Mishra’s book “The Age Of Anger: A History of the Present” is the antidote to the defenders of the enlightenment, like Jordan Peterson and Steven Pinker, who are suddenly so big now. It examines the gap between what modernity and development promised and what it actually delivered and explores how that is tied to our extreme age.

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