The DC Salon

Latest Episodes:

Episode 34 - Celeste Marcus Jan 26, 2024

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Host Chuong Nguyen talks to Celeste Marcus about her most recent essay, After Rape: A Guide For The Tormented. They consider questions like, "Why is rape so difficult to talk about?" "How long does it take to feel okay afterwards?" "Why do so many rapists not think of what they did as rape?"

WRB x Liberties Salon 1 - Are Books Worthwhile? Dec 19, 2023

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Chris McCaffery, of the Washington Review of Books, and Celeste Marcus, managing editor of Liberties, host a salon in which they and a group of lively invested parties ask whether or not books are worthwhile.

Speakers in order of appearance: Jerome Copulsky, Carlos Lozada, Becca Rothfeld, Mikra Namani, Laura Field, Osita Nwanevu, Nic Rowan, Ari Schulman, Steven Larkin, Zach Wehrwein, Lars Schonander, and Hannah Rowan.

Episode 33 - Khalil Sayegh Dec 01, 2023

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Khalil Sayegh, a Palestinian born and raised in Gaza, talks about his experience in the peace-building world and how he intends to change it.

Recording: Liberties X Interintellect Salon: Arash Azizi Oct 20, 2023

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Recording of a salon held on October 19th with Arash Azizi about socialism, liberalism, and the Israeli Palestinian conference.

EVENT UPDATE: This salon is being reframed in light of the current crisis in the Middle East: Arash Azizi, a specialist on Iran, and Celeste Marcus, a liberal Zionist, will discuss how Arash’s socialism and my liberalism inform our views of the current paroxysms. Both of our ideologies are universalist, and that universalism is in tension with our respective tribalisms. This is sure to be a spirited, respectful, and interesting conversation.

Arash Azizi, author of The Shadow Commander: Soleimani, the US, and Iran’s Global Amibtions, and What Iranians Want: Women, Life Freedom, joins Celeste Marcus to discuss how the humanism that undergirds his socialism is complimentary of, if not identical with, the liberalism to which Liberties is dedicated.

Liberalism is a political and philosophical theory dedicated to the protection of individual rights. It is itself secular, though an ideal liberal society is pluralistic and protects the rights of individuals to practice and observe as they please so long as their practices do not infringe on the rights of others. Because of liberalism’s pluralism, it depends on minorities to use the liberal system in order to advocate on their own behalf. Therefore, liberals are often dependent on non-liberals (since statistically a large percentage of leaders of minority groups will not identify as liberals) to do the advocacy work which allows a liberal society to function healthily. Arash Azizi is an example of a writer and advocate who uses the language and philosophy of socialism to advocate for the individual rights that liberalism too holds dear. This will be a discussion about how his socialism is and is not consistent with Liberties‘ liberalism.

Recommended reading:

“Liberalism of Fear” by Judith Shklar is the text that best informs Celeste Marcus’ liberalism
“Marxism and Democracy” by Michael Harrington will furnish an understand of Arash Azizi’s socialism. See also: “What Karl Marx Really Thought About Liberalism.”

Episode 32 - Benjamin Moser May 31, 2023

Show notes

In the first in a series Liberties X Interintellect salons, Benjamin Moser joins Celeste Marcus to discuss his forthcoming book The Upside Down World. Arriving as a young writer in an ancient Dutch town, Moser was overwhelmed by the language, people, and culture. The great painters of the Dutch Golden Age —Rembrandt, Hals, and Vermeer among them— offered him entry into his strange new universe. This book is a portrait of seventeen of these artists, and of Moser’s peculiar conception of each of them.

Episode 31 - Agnes Callard and Becca Rothfeld Apr 27, 2023

Show notes

Becca Rothfeld and Celeste Marcus pepper Agnes Callard with questions about motherhood, among them: how it changes one, whether it's possible to prepare for it, and if one's own identity is enriched or extinguished through it.

Episode 30 - Justin E H Smith Mar 04, 2023

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Justin E H Smith joins Celeste Marcus to discuss the thought and style of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Episode 29 - Agnes Callard Jan 20, 2023

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Agnes Callard and Celeste Marcus use "Scenes from a Marriage," the television series directed by Ingmar Bergman and released in 1973, to consider themes such as whether loneliness is inevitable, whether one has a moral imperative either to lie or to be wholly honest with their partner, what personal liberation means, and whether or not it is possible.

Episode 28 - Jared Marcel Pollen Dec 28, 2022

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Jared Marcel Pollen joins Leon Wieseltier to discuss Václav Havel and the proper relationship between power and justice.

Episode 27 - Celeste Marcus Oct 13, 2022

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Leon Wieseltier and Celeste Marcus discuss the rise of the radical Israeli right and the peculiar pain of responsible loyalty to a state