As the U.S. Supreme Court begins a new session, several justices are trying to reassure the public of the court’s nonpartisanship. But, as Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick argues, when you dig into the recent decisions of the court, you’ll see it becoming steadily more political.
Guest: Dahlia Lithwick writes about the courts and the law for Slate and hosts the podcast Amicus.
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Navigation on the open ocean is extremely difficult. It is a skill that takes years to master.
Even with years of skill, an experienced mariner was still able to ground their ship on an unseen reef, underwater rocks, or a sandbar, because they didn’t know their precise location.
The main problem, which was unsolved for centuries, was determining your longitude.
Learn more about the longitude problem, and how it was eventually solved, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.
What does the face of power look like? It’s a question the academic Mary Beard explores in her latest book, Twelve Caesars: Images of Power from the Ancient World to the Modern. She tells Kirsty Wark how the depiction of Roman autocrats have influenced art, culture and the presentation of power for more than two thousand years.
King George III was condemned in the 18th century as ‘the cruellest tyrant of his age’ and depicted as a diminutive and pompous figure in the 21st century musical, Hamilton. These are images the historian Andrew Roberts seeks to counter in his new biography of the King. His revisionist account argues that far from being a tyrant or incompetent he was one of the country’s most admirable monarchs.
Modern political leaders are no strangers to the importance of public image. As the Conservative government holds its party political conference in Manchester the political commentator and sometime-stand-up comedian Ayesha Hazarika looks at how leaders of different parties have tried to stage manage their hold on power.
For decades, scholars have been calling into question the universality of disciplinary objects and categories. The coherence of defined autonomous categories—such as religion, science, and art—has collapsed under the weight of postmodern critiques, calling into question the possibility of progress and even the value of knowledge. Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm aims to radicalize and move beyond these deconstructive projects to offer a path forward for the humanities and social sciences using a new model for theory he calls metamodernism.
Metamodernism: The Future of Theory (U Chicago Press, 2021) works through the postmodern critiques and uncovers the mechanisms that produce and maintain concepts and social categories. In so doing, Storm provides a new, radical account of society’s ever-changing nature—what he calls a “Process Social Ontology”—and its materialization in temporary zones of stability or “social kinds.” Storm then formulates a fresh approach to philosophy of language by looking beyond the typical theorizing that focuses solely on human language production, showing us instead how our own sign-making is actually on a continuum with animal and plant communication.
Storm also considers fundamental issues of the relationship between knowledge and value, promoting a turn toward humble, emancipatory knowledge that recognizes the existence of multiple modes of the real. Metamodernism is a revolutionary manifesto for research in the human sciences that offers a new way through postmodern skepticism to envision a more inclusive future of theory in which new forms of both progress and knowledge can be realized.
Tiatemsu Longkumer is a Ph.D. scholar working on ‘Anthropology of Religion’ at North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong: India
We'll tell you about another unfortunate milestone the U.S. has hit in this pandemic and why there's hope.
And a major oil spill off the California coast: what we know so far about the impact.
Also, hundreds of journalists worked on what's being called the Pandora Papers. We'll explain what secrets they reveal.
Plus, a Facebook whistleblower comes forward, why you may be paying more to heat your home this fall and winter, and the Powerball jackpot that just set a record.
Greg Wrightstone, a geologist and expert reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has posted content on LinkedIn for years. It would often spark discussions and debates among his followers—and the occasional trolls.
That changed last month. Wrightstone, who serves as executive director of the CO2 Coalition, says he was banned from LinkedIn for posting factual information related to climate change. His appeal was denied, leaving him without a voice on a platform where he had cultivated a significant following.
Having been stripped of his ability to communicate on LinkedIn, he’s now speaking out and sharing his story publicly with The Daily Signal. Wrightstone warns others about social media censorship and the consequences of limiting discussion and debate.
Also on today's show, a conservative activist calls out Facebook for suppressing his posts.
For more than a decade, Texas native Don Kirchoff has used Facebook to share news and information with fellow conservatives. The longtime Heritage Foundation supporter and Heritage Action Sentinel frequently posts Daily Signal stories as well as content from other conservative organizations and media outlets.
But is anyone seeing them?
Many of his Facebook posts that have zero likes or comments, prompting Kirchoff to take his case directly to Facebook. While that has worked in the past, he’s noticed the problem more often.
Kirchoff captured screenshots and shared them with The Daily Signal as well as Facebook. (The Daily Signal is the multimedia news organization of Heritage.)
Kirchoff joined the podcast to explain the situation and raise awareness for other conservatives.
It can be hard enough to answer the question, "what kind of music do you like?" But how about "why do you like it?" That's one of the many questions about the human brain and sound that neuroscientist Nina Kraus set out to answer in her book Of Sound Mind. In this interview with NPR's Ari Shapiro, she breaks down the science behind what our brains do when they process sound, and how it differs for each of us.
Burnout has long been a problem among health care workers. The pandemic has only made it worse. Some were hopeful COVID vaccines would provide some relief, but that hasn't been the case. Now, health care workers are leaving the industry — and they're taking their expertise with them. Plenty of surveys say that burnout hurts patient care. NPR correspondent Yuki Noguchi spoke to medical workers who agree, the burnout they see on the job means that sometimes patients are not getting what they need.
