Ep. 31 - Just Citizens

Explicit content warning

10/22/18 • 122 min

The confidence we’ve always had as a people isn’t simply some romantic dream, or a proverb in a dusty book we read just on the Fourth of July. In this episode we’re talking democracy and consumerism through those American specters John Dewey, the thirty-ninth President James Earl Carter, and the citizen-reviewers of Amazon dot com. SOURCES: - Jimmy Carter, Address to the Nation on Energy (Nov. 8, 1977): bit.ly/2R3bFNo ; - John Dewey, The Public and Its Problems (1927): a.co/d/aRa9JvB ; - John Dewey, The Quest for Certainty (1929) ; - WaPo "Presidential" podcast, "Jimmy Carter: Keeping the Faith." transcript: wapo.st/2POYTlk ; - Peanuts to the Presidency: the Jimmy Carter Campaign (1978): youtu.be/kHgMS2xVyJY ; - American Experience: Jimmy Carter, PBS Films (2002): youtu.be/FXyeIklDDEI ; - footage from "The Made-for-TV Election 1980" film, dir. William Brandon Shanley, starring Martin Sheen (1986): youtu.be/LeJxuOVXEm8 ; - Jimmy Carter, "Crisis of Confidence" speech (July 14, 1979), transcript: bit.ly/2Jc6AQf , video: youtu.be/kakFDUeoJKM ; - "A Former President, A Person of Faith," interview with Jimmy Carter on 1A (March 2018): bit.ly/2CWH40Y ; - "John Dewey's Radical Critique of the New Deal," by Daniel O'Connor (2010): bit.ly/2Any2rB ; - John Dewey, "The Teacher and the Public" (1935) ; - James Fallows, "The Passionless Presidency: The trouble with Jimmy Carter's Administration, " The Atlantic (May 1979): bit.ly/2yssLNJ ; - cover image: Stefan Czapsky, 1990 ; - music from the episode: https://bit.ly/2AouMw9 .

Previous Episode

Ep. 30 - The Mandala

Let's talk about movies. How would you talk about a movie if it wants you to shut up? Climb aboard for a one-way trip down the river of striking images, dream-like sequences, and too many meaningful looks. From the ridiculous to the sacred, we examine the examinations of the unspeakable silence at the heart of life. SOURCES: - 2001: A Space Odyssey, dir. Stanley Kubrick (1968) ; - Plato, Republic (514a & ff.) ; - Song to Song, dir. Terence Malick (2017) ; - Paul Schraeder's review of Song to Song: bit.ly/2vqghom ; - Paul Schraeder, Transcendental Style in Film: Ozu, Bresson, Dreyer, with new introduction, "Rethinking Transcendental Style" (2018): a.co/eiNRfRh ; - Stalker, dir. Andrei Tarkovsky (1979) ; - Late Spring, dir. Yasujirô Ozu (1949) ; - Five Dedicated to Ozu, dir. Abbas Kiarostami (2003) ; - cover image: Lucas Samaras, 1975 - music from the episode: bit.ly/2AN40zL .

Next Episode

Ep. 32 - Passage Potluck

The world is a snakepit of competing takes and diverging minds. How is anybody supposed to live? In this episode, we play a game called Passage Potluck to straighten it all out. We assembled a packet of short excerpted texts, and forced ourselves to connect dots between, through, and around them, at random. The passages we wound up discussing are assembled for listeners here: bit.ly/peoplespacket ; but the full packet we had in front of us is for our Patreon supporters here: bit.ly/patreonpacket . Music from the episode: https://bit.ly/2B7rUnc ; Image credit: Thomas Prior.