The DC Salon

Holly Brewer joins Celeste Marcus to discuss the intellectual history of a pernicious racist idea contemporary scholars wrongly attributed to John Locke.  

Michael Kimmage and Leon Wieseltier discuss the rhetoric of declinism which is both ubiquitous and inaccurate, its origins, and the dangers it poses.

Benjamin Moser, in conversation with Leon Wieseltier and Celeste Marcus, argues that translation is a form of cultural appropriation that does not appropriate nearly enough.

Jewher Ilham, Uyghur activist and the daughter of celebrated economist Ilham Tohti (now serving a life sentence in jail in China), joins Leon Wieseltier and Celeste Marcus to discuss the Uyghur Genocide. Jewher describes how the conditions for Uyghurs have changed in China over the past few decades, what the concentration camps are and what goes on in them, who her father is and what he was fighting for, and what the international community can and should be doing to help the Uyghurs. 

Agnes Callard joins Celeste Marcus to discuss the movie Winter Light (1963), faith, faithlessness, body hatred, and, of course, Ingmar Bergman. 

Mamtimin Ala, a Uyghur activist and intellectual, talks with Celeste Marcus not only about the Uyghur genocide in China, but also about the syncretistic beauty and wealth of Uyghur tradition. Among the tragedies of the Uyghur story is that they are known most often for the horrors they now endure, and not for their vast, rich history. The Analysis of Uyghur culture - and Chinese culture - sheds much light on the origins of the current outrage.

Michelle Dauphinais Echols talks with Celeste Marcus about the alleged rape and torture of her nine cousins, the Charbonneau sisters, at St. Paul's Indian School in the 1960s and 1970s. 

Becca Rothfeld and Celeste Marcus discuss Sanctimony Literature, the relationship between art and politics, and how to evaluate political art. 

Ramachandra Guha talks with Leon Wieseltier and Celeste Marcus about Modi's disastrous mishandling of the pandemic in India, the ensuing disaster, and the historical and political context for the current crisis.

Andrea Marcolongo talks with Celeste Marcus about how the pandemic has altered her self-perception as a writer, and about what a writer's role is.