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Public Intellectual
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Complicated conversations with complicated people about complicated topics. Let's get into the real mess of gender, feminism, punishment, class, politics, and culture and leave easy rhetoric and jingoism behind. Hosted by Jessa Crispin.
158 Episodes
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Dianna Souhami has worked for decades as a chronicler of sexual subcultures in early 20th century Europe, and finally, she is allowed to deliver her thesis: without this network of lesbians, the parties they through and the lovers they supported, modernism would not have been possible. She speaks with Jessa about our limited ideas of creativity and genius, why rewriting history is still important, and the lifelong project of lineage. (This will be the final episode with Jessa Crispin as host.) http://patreon.com/publicintellectual
1Between Love Island, Love is Blind, FBoy Island, Sexy Beasts, Too Hot to Handle etc, we sure do love watching hot straight people be tortured for the possibility of love. Cameron and Jessa discuss why these properties are still considered "guilty pleasures" despite the harm they are doing and why they all seem to be designed by incels. Support this podcast: http://patreon.com/publicintellectual
After a couple thousand years of Christianity, some populations who had been suffering under Yahweh decided to give some other gods and goddesses a try. But did they create systems that were just as equally oppressive to others? You know, on accident? The journalist Ana Valens returns to PI to talk to Jessa about the difficulties in mixing biology and spirituality, religion as protest, and what to do with mystical feelings in a secular culture. http://patreon.com/publicintellectual
Amanda Knox is back in the news, as a film "inspired by" the story of her being accused of murder is in the theaters. Knox has compared telling stories of other people's lives to "cultural appropriation," and Cameron and Jessa try to untangle that particular mess. Who gets to tell a story? What is the divide between the private and the public self? And how can Henry James help us solve this quandary? Support this podcast: http://patreon.com/publicintellectual http://jessacrispin.com
Both the Euros and Copa America saw the anticipated winners humiliated in their own homes. It was nice, a treat. Former soccer player and activist Nicolás R Melo revisits the highs and lows of the pandemic tournaments, the easy (and politically objectionable) narratives of sports), how England's "It's Coming Home" campaign angered so many outside of England, and why Italy defeating England and Argentina defeating Brazil was the best possible outcome. Support this podcast: http://patreon.com/publicintellectual
People keep holding funerals for the Girlboss, that figure of narcissism and disgrace, but aren't we all girlbosses now? Don't we all have to be to survive in late capitalism? Cameron Steele and Jessa discuss what distinguishes a girlboss, the adoration/cancellation cycle, the extremely revealing Man Repeller interview, and whether it's possible to have a career without being a careerist. Support this podcast: http://patreon.com/publicintellectual
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and JK Rowling have both been elected to a position where they are allowed and asked to speak for women. So what harm does it do when what they decide to say is anti-trans and harmful? Cameron and Jessa parse through these demands to be accommodated and in control of women's spaces, and they wonder if someone when ring a bell to let us know when we are no longer oppressed and can be kind and generous to others again. Support this podcast: http://patreon.com/publicintellectual
The recording industry is in a bind, with the big money going to intermediaries like Spotify, with little idea of what makes a star these days, and with a critical culture that no longer knows what it's talking about. Meanwhile, industrial knowledge about how to record music in a room, or even how to play instruments, is lost and ignored in favor of computers and algorithms. Zach and Jessa discuss the real world effects of prioritizing the plastic over the human and why most music sounds flat these days. http://patreon.com/publicintellectual
From pearl clutching "think of the children" to terfdom to the reign of momfluencers, we've decided to get sentimental about the nuclear family again. This can be seen as heavily on the left ("social reproduction," my god) as on the right. Cameron Steele, writer and editor and mother, and Jessa, barely any of these, discuss the way we have decided to stop thinking about families and create halos around motherhood. Support this podcast: http://patreon.com/publicintellectual http://jessacrispin.com
Ben Lerner's The Topeka School was recently shortlisted for the Pulitzer, and critics have been raving about its insight into Trump Country. But... how good is it? Christopher Piatt and Jessa, two former small town, rural Kansans, read the Topeka School and discuss all of its hot takes on red state culture, its shallow research on the deep weirdness of Kansas, and why it is no longer expected for Kansans to be the audience, let alone the creators, of art these days. http://patreon.com/publicintellectual http://jessacrispin.com
For all of the think pieces about why Millennials aren't having as many children as previous generations -- maybe they are too selfish blah blah blah -- very few ever hit on how very difficult it is to raise a child in America right now, where every resource from decent schooling and child care, must not only be sought out but competed for. Jessa speaks with Maxine Eichner, author of The Free Market Family, about how America started to prioritize the market over the family, and asks an essential question: what is the economy for? Support this podcast: http://patreon.com/publicintellectual http://jessacrispin.com
Tiger King was a sensation, so a million words had to be spilled in response. Most of those words accused the Netflix docuseries itself of being immoral, misogynistic, exploitative. Rather than just depicting immorality, misogyny, and exploitation. Why do we look to our entertainment to teach us moral lessons, why do we need so many strong female heroines, why do we need our filmmakers, writers, and artists to talk to us like we are children? Cultural critic and poet Eileen G'Sell joins Jessa Crispin to discuss. Support this podcast: http://patreon.com/publicintellectual http://jessacrispin.com
Jason Pine (The Alchemy of Meth) joins Jessa to discuss the invisibility of America's drug crisis. Pine spent a year in Missouri to research his book on the overwhelming presence of meth, an extremely common and yet almost entirely invisible issue. But this is also a conversation about creativity under late capitalism, the health care crisis, and exploitation vs representation. Support this podcast: http://patreon.com/publicintellectual http://jessacrispin.com
The shelter in place and work from home orders are straining domestic spaces, and it feels like the most professional and public feminist speakers are not up the task of imagining how to respond. What is the "feminist angle" on the coronavirus? It's not just that men need to do more housework. We need to re-imagine the domestic sphere now that this crisis is showing its weaknesses. Breanne Fahs (Firebrand Feminism, Burn It Down) joins Jessa to discuss material feminism and the revolutionary power of divorce. Support this podcast: http://patreon.com/publicintellectual http://jessacrispin.com
Anne Case and Angus Deaton released Deaths of Despair this year, the culmination of their study into how your education level determines how much pain you'll experience in life, how long you'll live, and your ability to fend off addiction and despair. Basically: if you lack a college degree, you will die sooner and live harder. Anne Case joins Jessa to discuss these "forgotten" men and women. Support this podcast: http://patreon.com/publicintellectual http://jessacrispin.com
Jim Behrle reports from the tumbleweeds of Time Square to discuss eco-fascism, why the bees should just take over, how to get through this sheltering-in-place with arts and crafts, and the respective strengths of our wills to live. Support this podcast: http://patreon.com/publicintellectual http://jessacrispin.com
Joe Kennedy, author of Authentocrats: Culture, Politics and the New Seriousness, swings by to talk about the parallels between the UK and US elections, how everyone loves to be pandered to, why the "forgotten" white working class voter is more complex than the politician pretending to be one, why American politicians absolutely must be photographed eating corn dogs, animosity toward the cosmopolitan class, and James Bond. Support this podcast: http://patreon.com/publicintellectual http://jessacrispin.com
We're releasing this bonus episode from the Patreon vaults. Come subscribe to our Patreon and get content like this all the time! (Or, you know, on a semi-regular basis, we have jobs and so on.) Regular bonus episode co-host Margaret Howie joins Jessa to talk about the outspoken career of Sinead O'Connor, and how she has paid the price for that outspokenness. Support this podcast: http://patreon.com/publicintellectual
Why are celebrity crushes so embarrassing? Critic and editor Jennifer Hodgson joins Jessa to overintellectualize their shared crush on Bill Hader, to think about female desire, how celebrity crushes are labor, and why we suddenly find ourselves attracted to a middle aged father of three from the American midwest. http://jessacrispin.com Support this podcast: http://patreon.com/publicintellectual
JoAnn Wypijewski joins Jessa to discuss the Weinstein trial and conviction, after writing about it for the Nation. We discuss how trials for sexual violence have changed rapidly over the last few years, how the media gave a misleading account of how the trial was going, and why the sexual predator has such a fairy tale-like quality in our culture. http://jessacrispin.com Support this podcast: http://patreon.com/publicintellectual
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Boring and useless. This guy is bashing the book, but without any real criticism. He's not even funny. Delete this episode, for Heck's sake, and pretend you did not even recorded it.