PODCAST · HISTORY OF IDEAS · PUBLIC CONVERSATION
Free-form, scholarly conversations that place great texts, thinkers and political ideas in context.
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The player updates automatically, so the newest conversations are always available here.
Search this website’s articles and pages. Try Rapin, Confessions or faction. For a broader route, browse the thinker and subject collections below.
Rousseau: Self, Freedom and Education
Episodes one and two are available now. Begin with Rousseau’s life and self-portrait, then explore inequality, political freedom and the general will.
Episode 1: life and the Confessions. Listen to episode 1 · Watch episode 1 · Reading route · Companion article.
Episode 2: Can Society Make Us Free Again? Listen to episode 2 · Watch episode 2 · Reading route · Companion article.
Samuel Woodall presents episode one solo and is joined by Jack Thomson for episode two. Join the shared Rousseau discussion: can we become free together?
Montaigne: Self, Doubt and Difference
Three conversations with Samuel Woodall and Jack Thomson: self-portraiture, living and dying, and cultural judgement. All three episodes and their website companions are available now.
Listen to Montaigne episode 3 directly on Buzzsprout, or choose an episode page below for its audio, video, reading notes and discussion link.
Why Did Montaigne Make Himself His Subject?
Why did Montaigne write about himself? Explore his Essays, changing identity and self-knowledge with Samuel Woodall and Jack Thomson.
How Should We Learn to Live and Die?
Explore Montaigne on death, education and everyday experience with Samuel Woodall and Jack Thomson in the second Beyond the Text conversation.
Who Gets to Call Whom Barbarous?
Montaigne on custom, cruelty and cultural judgement: Samuel Woodall and Jack Thomson ask who gets to call another society barbarous.
Hobbes: the complete trilogy
All three conversations are available. Each episode page includes the video, an episode-specific audio link and reading notes.
Episode 1: Who Was Thomas Hobbes and What Was He Afraid Of?
Episode 2: Why Should We Obey the State? Hobbes on Political Obligation
Episode 3: When Does Disagreement Become Faction? Hobbes on Political Division
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Three places to start
Choose an episode in the player above, or open the complete archive in Pocket Casts.
13 MINUTES · INTELLECTUAL HISTORY
Rapin de Thoyras and the Making of English Party
A concise introduction to moderation, historical memory and the emergence of party in eighteenth-century Britain.
43 MINUTES · POLITICAL THOUGHT
Edmund Burke and the Moral Imagination
A conversation about judgment, inherited institutions and the place of imagination in Burke’s political thought.
1 HOUR 11 MINUTES · HISTORY OF IDEAS CLUB
Industrialisation and Karl Marx
A seminar conversation on industrial transformation and Marx’s critique of modern society.
Browse episodes by theme
Explore dedicated episode pages by subject, then follow selected conversations into companion articles and Reading Club discussions.
Political Thought
Intellectual History
Interviews
Scholar conversations and interviews from across the full archive.
History of Ideas Club
Religion & Political Theology
Revolution of Thought
Follow the complete eight-part seminar journey through revolutions in religion, government, science, philosophy and society.
