Recall This Book

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14 In Focus: Cixin Liu (in English, with Pu Wang, JP) Aug 13, 2019

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In this episode, John and Brandeis professor Pu Wang talk with the bestselling science fiction author Cixin Liu. Mr. Liu is the author of The Three Body Problem, The Dark Forest, Death’s End, and other works. When he visited Brandeis to receive an honorary degree, Liu paid a visit to the RTB lair to record … Continue reading "14 In Focus: Cixin Liu (in English, with Pu Wang, JP)"

14c 刘慈欣访谈中文版 Cixin Liu with Pu Wang (in Chinese) Aug 13, 2019

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[This is the original Chinese interview with Cixin Liu; to hear the English translation, go to Episode 14] 今年5月18日，前来Brandeis大学接受荣誉博士学位的科幻小说家刘慈欣接受了John Plotz和王璞两位教授的专访。这次独具深度、异常精彩的访谈，已经整理为中英双语两个版本，想听刘慈欣中文原声的科幻迷们，请点这里！也请有兴趣的朋友们多多关注Recall This Book。收听音频，请戳——

13 Polynesia, Sea of Islands: with Christina Thompson Aug 02, 2019

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John and Elizabeth talk cultural renewal with Christina Thompson, author of Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia, a book that both tells a part of the history of Polynesia, and tells how histories of Polynesia are constructed. The discussion also ranges to consider different moments of cultural contact between Polynesian and European thinkers and doers. Those … Continue reading "13 Polynesia, Sea of Islands: with Christina Thompson"

12 RTB Presents “The Electro–Library” (with Jared Green) Jul 06, 2019

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In this warm summer episode, Elizabeth and John present a marvelous podcast, The Electro-Library, and they speak with one of its hosts and founders, Jared Green. Elizabeth, Jared and John play snippets from a recent Electro-Library episode on the decidedly non-podcasty topic of photographs, and use it as a springboard to discuss the different aesthetic experiences … Continue reading "12 RTB Presents “The Electro–Library” (with Jared Green)"

11 Xenophobia and Ethno-Nationalism, 1973 to today (Quinn Slobodian) Jun 14, 2019

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What’s the relationship between immigration, globalization and demographics? What do a badly characterized, racist novel and an imaginatively metaphoric biology article from the 1970s have to do with that? And what is woke particularism? John and Elizabeth find out all of that and more in this discussion with Quinn Slobodian, professor of history at Wellesley … Continue reading "11 Xenophobia and Ethno-Nationalism, 1973 to today (Quinn Slobodian)"

10 Life, Writing, and Life Writing with Helena DeBres May 16, 2019

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Bonus! Available only on our website, Episode 10X includes a brief RTB discussion about Exit Zero, a stunning “auto-ethnography” that raises fascinating questions about what it means when people retell stories or anecdotes about their own lives as a form of evidence that helps explain their overall worldview. Update: For more on autofiction, check out this essay on … Continue reading "10 Life, Writing, and Life Writing with Helena DeBres"

10x Bonus! “Exit Zero” and Life Writing May 16, 2019

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Helena DeBres had so many brilliant insights about the ethics and the future of life writing that the final third of our discussion overflowed the bounds of our ordinary format. So we present that final conversation to you here as a bonus episode–well, episodelette. Elizabeth, John and Helena here discuss Christine J. Walley’s “autoethnography” Exit Zero: … Continue reading "10x Bonus! “Exit Zero” and Life Writing"

9 Women in Political Power; with Manduhai Buyandelger Mar 28, 2019

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Evita, Thatcher and HRC walk into a glass ceiling…In this episode, John and Elizabeth are joined by MIT anthropologist Manduhai Buyandelger to discuss women in political power in Argentina, Mongolia, the UK, the United States and beyond. At the conversation’s heart: Manduhai analyzes the legacy of “female quotas” in Soviet-era politics, as well as … Continue reading "9 Women in Political Power; with Manduhai Buyandelger"

8 Distraction, a Conversation (Marina Van Zuylen and John Plotz at Harvard’s Mahindra Center) Mar 14, 2019

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We frequently worry that we live in a “distracted age.” But perhaps the human condition is always to live “almost always in one place with our minds somewhere quite another” (Ford Madox Ford, “On Impressionism”). Join John’s conversation with Marina Van Zuylen of Bard College. Van Zuylen, the author of The Plenitude of Distraction, makes … Continue reading "8 Distraction, a Conversation (Marina Van Zuylen and John Plotz at Harvard’s Mahindra Center)"

7 In Focus: Samuel Delany in conversation with John Plotz (Nevèrÿon, Triton, Gertrude Stein and more….) Mar 07, 2019

Show notes

On August 6, 2019, an article based on this podcast interview appeared in our partner publication, Public Books. Fresh on the heels of our conversation with Madeline Miller, author of Circe, John Plotz has a talk with Samuel Delany, living legend of science fiction and fantasy. You probably know him best for breakthrough novels like Dhalgren and Trouble … Continue reading "7 In Focus: Samuel Delany in conversation with John Plotz (Nevèrÿon, Triton, Gertrude Stein and more….)"

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