Listening ideas for 27 March 2011

Philosophy Bites
Catharine MacKinnon on Gender Crime
In this episode of the Philosophy Bites podcast Catharine MacKinnon talks to Nigel Warburton about the concept of Gender Crime.
(review, feed)

Zencast
Intro to Zen
Intro to Zen - Alan Watts Thank you to Mark Watts for allowing us to podcast this lecture.
(review, feed)

Veertien Achttien
Hjalmar Hammarskjöld en nee zeggen tegen beide kampen
Zijn zonen vertrouwde hij de wereldvrede toe, maar het Zweedse volk sloot oorlogspremier Hjalmar Hammarskjöld niet in zijn armen.
(review, feed)

New Books Network

I love the podcast New Books in History not only because I love history and the host Marshall Poe makes sure I get a great history shot every week. It is also because NBiH has a great formula that objectively -I think- is particularly fit for podcast: interview by an informed reader with the author of a good book that just has come out.

Marshall Poe has been running NBiH for about three years now and seen this as well and is now expanding into all conceivable other fields. He has set up the New Books Network and is recruiting specialists from a wide range of disciplines to make their own New Books podcast. In potential NBN is offering next to NBiH a near hundred of other new podcasts, but most of them are filled with cross-posted content from NBiH, if at all. Working new podcasts in this collection are New Books in military history, public policy, psychoanalysis, law, and food. Especially the ones in Law and in Public Policy are off to a good start. I will be reviewing them soon you can expect.

Listening ideas for 26 March 2011

Philosopher's Zone
Who was Gilles Deleuze?
Gilles Deleuze, who died by his own hand in 1995, was one of the most influential and prolific French philosophers of the second half of the twentieth century. He wrote influentially not just on philosophy, but on literature, film, fine art and the environment as well. But his writing style - highly allusive, peppered with neologisms - is not easy-going. This week, we try to get to grips with a significant and important thinker.
(review, feed)

Science Friday
Hour 1: Building Blocks of Life, Pre-Clovis Americans, Return of Project Mohole
New analysis of an old spark flask biochemistry experiment, hunting for traces of Americas first inhabitants, drilling to the mantle of the Earth.
Hour 2: Computers and Emotions, Richard Feynman, Spacesuit Design
Measuring emotions via technology, a biography of physicist Richard Feynman, and a look at Apollo-era space suit design.
(review, feed)

Harvard thinks big

Here is a challenge: have a scientist with a great idea to summarize it in a ten minute lecture. Harvard has done it in the series Harvard Thinks Big. The crash lectures mounted all one after the other in a one night event and they recorded this on video for us to enjoy in video podcast.

It is too bad the quality of the sound and visuals were botched. If this was an attempt by Harvard to do something similar to TED Talks it miserably failed as far as the presentation is concerned. For the content, there is more to say. Go watch and enjoy. (feed)

I learned from this series from Open Culture one of the blogs I follow for being informed about great academic free content on-line

Listening ideas for 25 March 2011

The China History Podcast
The Qing Dynasty Part 2
In this episode we examine the Yongzheng emperor, the second of the three great Qing emperors who reigned during the most golden of times for the Manchu dynasty. A tireless emperor who was a wizard at managing the machine of state, he reigned for only thirteen years before his son later brought the Qing dynasty to its greatest heights.
(review, feed)

On Being aka Speaking of Faith
Sidling Up to Difference
Our Civil Conversations Project continues with the Ghanaian-British-American philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah. His parents' marriage helped inspire the movie Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. He's studied ethics in a world of strangers and how unimaginable social change happens. We explore his erudite yet down-to-earth take on disarming moral hostilities in America now.
(review, feed)

Forgotten Classics
Genesis, chapters 22-23
In which Abraham and Isaac go to the mountaintop and Abraham buys at top dollar.
(review, feed)

Making History! with Ran Levi
הקוף שידע לאהוב, או איך התחלנו ללכת על שתים
בפרק זה נעקוב אחר אחת מההתפתחויות החשובות והדרמטיות ביותר באבולוציה האנושית: המעבר להליכה זקופה
(review, feed)

Tapestry - Karen Armstrong - Compassion (a year hence)

Remember Karen Armstrong's Charter for Compassion? That initiative was launched a little over a year ago and one may wonder how that went further. Armstrong returned to the CBC program Tapestry to tell about it. (feed)


I did not know the Charter started with funding by TED that Armstrong won and was to invest any which way she saw fit. It was not felt when she spoke at TED about the Charter. By now TED's money has been used, but the Fetzer institute stepped in to continue the funding. Apart from the interfaith dialog, there is also a book Twelve steps to a compassionate life - is that a paraphrase of AA's twelve steps program? We do seem to be addicted to our selfishness all right.

Listen to Mary Hines's conversation with Karen Armstrong on Tapestry and and pay attention to what she says about dialog. For me that comes straight to my heart: how I love good conversation and how rare is it. Another podcast that pointed that subject out was On Being when Krista Tippet received John O'Donohue (feed) and he asked: when was the last time you truly conversed with someone else; when you had a conversation where you heard yourself say things you did not know you had in you and thus the dialog changed you both. How often is human interaction a senseless reiteration of the same sentences we speak on and on?

More Tapestry:
Giordano Bruno,
Surviving in the Wilderness,
Survival of the Kindest,
Fear,
Terry Eagleton.