The Gray Area with Sean Illing

Simone Weil’s radical philosophy of love and attention

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Sean Illing speaks with history professor Robert Zaretsky about Simone Weil, a 20th-century French writer and activist who dedicated her life to a radical philosophy of love and attention. They discuss how she inspired her contemporaries — like Albert Camus and Simone de Beauvoir — and how her revolutionary ideas have remained relevant and important.

Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area

Guest: Robert Zaretsky, history professor, The University of Houston

References: 

  • The Subversive Simone Weil: A Life in Five Ideas by Robert Zaretsky (The University of Chicago Press, 2021)
  • “The Philosophers: Resisting Despair” by Sean Illing (Vox, May 2022)
  • The Ethics of Attention: Engaging the Real with Iris Murdoch and Simone Weil by Silvia Caprioglio Panizza (Routledge, 2022)


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    This episode was made by: 

    • Engineer: Patrick Boyd
    • Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall

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