MindPop

A podcast about ideas, politics, history, and culture. Hosted by David Sehat.

MindPop 42: Polyamory 02/06/2024

MindPop 42: Polyamory Polyamory. If you’ve been paying any attention lately, you’ve probably heard the term. TV shows, books, magazines, and social media are abuzz with what appears to be widescale experimentation in consensual non-monogamy. But what does it mean? Where did the idea come from? How is it different than swinging, friends-with-benefits, having a side piece, or any of the other possible sexual arrangements? Christopher Gleason, author of American Poly: A History, explains. /episode/index/show/mindpoppodcast/id/29832348

MindPop 41: Food Safety, Food Politics 06/23/2019

MindPop 41: Food Safety, Food Politics E. coli. Listeria. Salmonella. When you turn on the news, it's hard not to hear about some tragic outbreak caused by lettuce, or beef, or something unknown. Why do outbreaks occur with such regularity? Is a failure of big government? Or is it big business putting profits above its customers? Or is it a regulatory state that is underfunded and overtasked? Timothy Lytton, Distinguished University Professor at Georgia State University, gives us some answers. /episode/index/show/mindpoppodcast/id/10154651

MindPop 40: HAL 9000 03/18/2018

MindPop 40: HAL 9000 When we think about AI, many of us have in mind HAL 9000 from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. But AI is here and it is not quite like the movies. So what does AI look like today? How it reshaping contemporary society and government? Whose interests does it serve and, for those pessimistic about its influence, is there anything that can be done to ameliorate its negative effects? Tim Hwang, the Director of the Ethics and Governance of AI Initiative at Harvard and MIT works through the possibilities. /episode/index/show/mindpoppodcast/id/6368388

MindPop 39: Solitude 12/17/2017

MindPop 39: Solitude What does it mean to be alone? Is aloneness, as Thoreau said, necessary to live deliberately? Or is it perhaps a curse of modern life made worse by mass media and cultural fragmentation? In this episode, American Studies scholar Ina Bergmann talks about the cultures of solitude in past and present. /episode/index/show/mindpoppodcast/id/6045326

MindPop 38: Network Error 11/29/2017

MindPop 38: Network Error How should we understand public debate in the era of social media? Can the internet be salvaged for democracy promotion? Or is it a Trojan horse for a dystopian future? Phil Howard of the Oxford Internet Institute talks about social media and politics. /episode/index/show/mindpoppodcast/id/5984537

MindPop 37: Truth and Post-Truth 11/15/2017

MindPop 37: Truth and Post-Truth How do we maintain a sense of fact and reality in a post-truth age? Are there any objective and universally accepted arbiters of truth left? How can democratic government, or even democratic argument, work without a mutually accepted body of information? Oxford politics scholar Nadia Hilliard talks about truth and post-truth in American government. /episode/index/show/mindpoppodcast/id/5947914

MindPop 36: A Conservative Revolution 11/05/2017

MindPop 36: A Conservative Revolution What was the impetus behind the American Revolution? Why were the revolutionaries who set up American institutions so concerned to protect property? What political implications does the founding moment have for today? Birmingham political historian Tom Cutterham talks about the conservative impulses in the American Revolution and what radical political change would actually mean. /episode/index/show/mindpoppodcast/id/5906877

MindPop 35: Black Humanism, Black Struggle 10/22/2017

MindPop 35: Black Humanism, Black Struggle "What can you say about God in light of human suffering in the world?" asks Rice religion scholar Anthony Pinn. "Nothing," he says, "because there is no God." In this conversation, we talk about black humanism and its connection to black activism and empowerment. Does black humanism betray African-American cultural tradition? Can you motivate people to activism without the church community? Are humanists ready to embrace the cause of justice even when it feels like a Sisyphean task? /episode/index/show/mindpoppodcast/id/5856705

MindPop 34: Taking a Knee 10/15/2017

MindPop 34: Taking a Knee Are white NFL team owners like modern slave masters? Do symbolic gestures produce fruitful political conversations? What kind of historical reckoning would be necessary for real social and political change? Williams historian Gretchen Long considers what the NFL protests signify about race in the United States today. /episode/index/show/mindpoppodcast/id/5837967

MindPop 33: Politics and Hope 10/08/2017

MindPop 33: Politics and Hope How does one recover from catastrophe? Why does politics fail and how does one find courage to continue? What can be done to recover the possibilities of collective action? Intellectual historian Richard King does a deep dive into the thought of Hannah Arendt, looking for some answers. /episode/index/show/mindpoppodcast/id/5814045

MindPop 32: Disaster Politics 10/01/2017

MindPop 32: Disaster Politics Why do presidents so often mess up disaster relief? Why is Congress so useless when it comes to rational planning and policy? Is any way to create a change in the political dynamic? Oxford political historian Gareth Davies talks disaster politics. /episode/index/show/mindpoppodcast/id/5759909

MindPop 31: Ideas and Progress 09/24/2017

MindPop 31: Ideas and Progress Pulitzer prize-winning historian Daniel Walker Howe talks about contemporary politics, the antebellum era, his disagreements with other historians (including his disagreements with MindPop host David Sehat), and why, in spite of Donald Trump, he still believes in progress. /episode/index/show/mindpoppodcast/id/5739363

MindPop 30: What is religious freedom? 09/10/2017

MindPop 30: What is religious freedom? David Sehat talks to Tisa Wenger, Associate Professor of Divinity at Yale University, about the meaning of religious freedom and the contemporary invocations of religious freedom by white, conservative Christians. /episode/index/show/mindpoppodcast/id/5427241

MindPop 29: What is an evangelical? 09/03/2017

MindPop 29: What is an evangelical? David Sehat talks to Melani McAlister, Associate Professor of American Studies and International Affairs at George Washington University, about evangelicalism, its meaning, and its place in American and global politics. /episode/index/show/mindpoppodcast/id/5427233

MindPop 28: What is the Religious Left? 08/27/2017

MindPop 28: What is the Religious Left? David Sehat talks to Marie Griffith, John C. Danforth Professor in the Humanities and Director of the Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis, about her work and how she sees this religious and political moment. /episode/index/show/mindpoppodcast/id/5427223

MindPop 27: What is a fact if no one listens? 08/20/2017

MindPop 27: What is a fact if no one listens? David Sehat talks to Besheer Mohamed, senior researcher at Pew Research Center, about the problem of objective knowledge in this partisan moment. /episode/index/show/mindpoppodcast/id/5427210

MindPop 26: Was America a Christian nation? 08/13/2017

MindPop 26: Was America a Christian nation? David Sehat talks to Peter Manseau, Lilly Endowment Curator of American Religious History at the National Museum of American History, about his own religious past and the way that he seeks to reflect the nation's religious past back to itself in a contested moment. /episode/index/show/mindpoppodcast/id/5427201

MindPop 25: Is this the midlife crisis? 08/06/2017

MindPop 25: Is this the midlife crisis? David Sehat takes a road trip with his friend Ben Wise, Associate Professor of History at the University of Florida, where they talk about ambition, midlife, and the puzzles of meaning. /episode/index/show/mindpoppodcast/id/5406692

MindPop 24: Originalist Fallacies 07/30/2017

MindPop 24: Originalist Fallacies David Sehat explains the problems of constitutional originalism as one component of the larger incoherence of the conservative movement. /episode/index/show/mindpoppodcast/id/5469675

MindPop 23: Is common ground possible? 07/23/2017

MindPop 23: Is common ground possible? David Sehat talks to Martha S. Jones, SOBA Presidential Professor of History at Johns Hopkins University, about whether common ground is possible or desirable in this political moment. /episode/index/show/mindpoppodcast/id/5517244

MindPop 22: Where is blackness now? 07/16/2017

MindPop 22: Where is blackness now? David Sehat talks to Christopher Cameron, Associate Professor of History at UNC-Charlotte, about what blackness means in this political moment. /episode/index/show/mindpoppodcast/id/5386841

MindPop 21: Where is the Left now? Part 4 07/09/2017

MindPop 21: Where is the Left now? Part 4 David Sehat talks to Andrew Hartman, Professor of History at Illinois State University, about the state of the Left, its moral panic about Donald Trump, and the Left's tortured relationship to liberalism and the market. /episode/index/show/mindpoppodcast/id/5386720

MindPop 20: Where is the Left now? Part 3 07/02/2017

MindPop 20: Where is the Left now? Part 3 David Sehat talks to Sarah Leonard, Features Editor at The Nation, about the state of the journalistic Left, the relationship of the Left to liberalism, and whether she thinks the Democratic Party is a potential vehicle for leftist politics. /episode/index/show/mindpoppodcast/id/5386601

MindPop 19: Where is the Left now? Part 2 06/25/2017

MindPop 19: Where is the Left now? Part 2 David Sehat talks to Bhaskar Sunkara, publisher and editor of Jacobin magazine, about the state of the Left and his vision of the American political future. /episode/index/show/mindpoppodcast/id/5386390

MindPop 18: Where is conservatism now? Part 3 06/18/2017

MindPop 18: Where is conservatism now? Part 3 David Sehat talks to Kevin den Dulk, Paul Henry Chair in Christianity and Politics at Calvin College, about evangelicals in the conservative movement, their surprising support for Donald Trump, and the risks of politicization to communities of faith. /episode/index/show/mindpoppodcast/id/5386134

MindPop 17: Where is conservatism now? Part 2 06/11/2017

MindPop 17: Where is conservatism now? Part 2 David Sehat talks to Nicole Hemmer, Assistant Professor at UVA's Miller Center, about conservative media and whether the echo chamber causes conservative epistemic closure. /episode/index/show/mindpoppodcast/id/5385877

MindPop 16: Where is conservatism now? 06/04/2017

MindPop 16: Where is conservatism now? David Sehat talks to Daniel McCarthy, editor-at-large for The American Conservative, about the state of conservatism today and why (oh why) he voted for Donald Trump. /episode/index/show/mindpoppodcast/id/5385774

MindPop 15: How does change happen? 05/21/2017

MindPop 15: How does change happen? David Sehat talks to Michael Todd Landis, Assistant Professor at Tarleton State University, about how political change occurred in the past and how it might be effected in the present. /episode/index/show/mindpoppodcast/id/5320699

MindPop 14: Is the planet doomed? 05/07/2017

MindPop 14: Is the planet doomed? David Sehat talks to Kim Cobb, Georgia Power Chair and College of Science ADVANCE professor at Georgia Tech, about threats to the planet and the state of American climate politics. /episode/index/show/mindpoppodcast/id/5309787

MindPop 13: The Republican Party, from Reagan to Trump 04/30/2017

MindPop 13: The Republican Party, from Reagan to Trump David Sehat explains the ascendancy of Donald Trump as a symptom and an extension of Republican intellectual failure. /episode/index/show/mindpoppodcast/id/5306568

MindPop

TOPICS