The Intellectual Diversity Podcast

Dr. Keith Gessen is a Russian-American writer, translator, and co-editor of the magazine n+1. In the first half of this podcast he discusses his new novel, A Terrible Country, about a young academic adrift in Russia, as well as his journalism about Russia. In the second half we discuss our differing views of the contemporary American academic scene. You can buy his book here: https://www.amazon.com/Terrible-Country-Novel-Keith-Gessen/dp/0735221316

In this episode we discuss Professor Main's recent book, The Rise of the Alt-Right, in which he sketches a genealogy of alt-right thought, and places it in the broader context of right-wing and conservative politics.

You can find the book here: https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Alt-Right-Thomas-J-Main/dp/0815732880

Gary Lachman discusses his journey from playing bass with Blondie and Iggy Pop to becoming a historian of the occult and a biographer of people like Swedenborg, Madame Blavatsky and Colin Wilson. We go on to discuss the relationship between politics and the occult in the context of his new book about Donald Trump.

Check out Gary's blog here: https://garylachman.co.uk/?

You can find his books here: https://www.amazon.com/Gary-Lachman/e/B001HOVBZ6

Tobias Churton has written four books about Aleister Crowley, as well as numerous other works on topics including  Gnosticism, Gurdjieff, and the history of occultism. We talk about Crowley's notion of the true self in the context of Brexit and about the experience of working today as an intellectual outside the dominant materialist paradigm.
 

Ken Wilber is the world's most well-known exponent of Integral Theory. In this episode he describes his intellectual development, discusses his theory of the evolution of consciousness in the context of the artificial intelligence revolution, and outlines the argument of his recent book about Donald Trump's America.

John Waters is a writer and journalist whose writing career has followed the profound changes Ireland has undergone since the 1980s. We discuss what has happened to the media, the church, and the public sphere in this period.

Prof. Richard Tarnas is the author of Passion of the Western Mind and Cosmos and Psyche. In this episode we discuss  topics including Jungian depth psychology and astrology, and their place in post-enlightenment and postmodern culture.

This episode features two of my Russian colleagues, Maxim Alyukov and Natalia Savalyeva, and is our first serious political conversation despite having worked together for 18 months, in which they disabuse me of various misconceptions about them, before we go on to consider the differences between Russia and America with regard to the academic left.

Dr Kirk Meighoo, former Trinidadian senator, and author of Politics in a Half Made Society, discusses the history of modern Caribbean politics and his political odyssey from student radical to public intellectual. We cover topics including the New World Group of Caribbean intellectuals founded in 1962, the nature of nationalism, global liberalism, the aims of the alt-right, and the character of the contemporary left.

Eugene Pustoshkin is editor of Eros and Kosmos magazine. He is a highly articulate interpreter and practitioner of Integral Theory who has translated several of Ken Wilber's books into Russian. Here he gives an overview of its central teachings and discusses its importance in Russia and beyond.