"We are self-conscious selves who are coming to understand the fact that we are not somehow walled off from the rest of the world. And so if we can begin to reframe some of these frightening relationships as profoundly intimate relationships that certainly require addressing. It's that kind of a reference frame shift that I think is going to help us move out of some of the darkness." Clayton Page Aldern is an award winning neuroscientist turned environmental journalist whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Economist, and Grist, where he is a senior data reporter. A Rh ..read more

How does a changing climate affect our minds, brains and bodies? Clayton Page Aldern is an award winning neuroscientist turned environmental journalist whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Economist, and Grist, where he is a senior data reporter. A Rhodes Scholar, he holds a Master's in Neuroscience and a Master's in Public Policy from the University of Oxford. He is also a research affiliate at the Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology at the University of Washington. He is the author of The Weight of Nature: How a Changing Climate Changes Our Minds, Brains, and B ..read more

“Doubling is kind of a big theme, and maybe it always is in spy literature, but maybe I think that that's why Viet chose to write a spy novel in a way and play with those sort of tropes because it's central and I think it's central to the message of the show and of the book. This idea that there's another side to every question. I mean, that's the central quandary. There's this problem with the whole Vietnam War. It's saying to Americans, at least put yourself on the other side, the Vietnamese side, and then recognize that that side also has two sides and then within that, there are further di ..read more

What are the stories we tell ourselves to justify our actions in times of war? How can the arts convey complexity and foster understanding? Don McKellar is a highly accomplished writer, director, and actor. He has written films including Roadkill, Highway 61, Dance Me Outside, The Red Violin, and Blindness. He won the Prix de la Jeunesse at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival for his directorial debut, Last Night, which he also wrote and starred in. He is an eight-time Genie Award nominee and a two-time winner. He wrote the book for the acclaimed musical The Drowsy Chap ..read more

In this episode on Speaking Out of Place podcast, Professor David Palumbo-Liu and Azeezah Kanji have a conversation with critical political theorists Adom Getachew and Ayça Çubukçu on the colonial construction of the international system and its organization around the institution of the nation state. The conversation covers and uncovers so many aspects of the hidden colonial history behind the constitution of this system, but also the resistance and creative appropriations by Black, Indigenous, and colonized peoples, allowing us to imagine possible liberatory futures beyond the forms and stri ..read more

"Midway Island, one of the most remote islands in the world, lies at the centre of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a huge concentration of plastic litter covering a surface that is almost three times the size of France. Islands that formerly offered visions of unexampled environmental plenty are now witness to unparalleled ecological devastation." Michael Cronin is an Irish academic specialist in culture, travel literature, translation studies, and the Irish language. He has taught in universities in France and Ireland and has held visiting research fellowships to universities in Canada, Belg ..read more

How has tourism and writing about travel contributed to the ecological degradation of the planet?How does language influence perception and our relationship to the more-than-human world? Michael Cronin is an Irish academic specialist in culture, travel literature, translation studies, and the Irish language. He has taught in universities in France and Ireland and has held visiting research fellowships to universities in Canada, Belgium, Peru, France, and Egypt. He's a fellow of Trinity College Dublin, an elected member of the Royal Irish Academy, and a senior researcher in the Trinity Centre f ..read more

In this episode on Speaking Out of Place podcast Professor David Palumbo-Liu and Azeezah Kanji talk we talk with Camilla Hawthorne about her recent edited collection, The Black Geographic: Praxis, Resistance, Futurity, and its relation to her prior monograph, Contesting Race and Citizenship: Youth Politics in the Black Mediterranean. She explains and elaborates on how Blackness is not singular, but involved in “taking place” in imaginative, resistant, and across many different political terrains, whether it be citizenship, the right to the city, the imagining of futures after environmental col ..read more

"Slavery is the most glaring, notorious, and important hypocrisy to discuss. How was it possible that these Founders, all of whom acknowledge that slavery violated natural rights and natural justice, themselves owned slaves? And it was striking to discover that they didn't even try. That Patrick Henry quote is so significant. He said: is it not amazing that I myself who believe that slavery is immoral, myself own slaves? I will not justify it. I won't attempt to. It's simple avarice or greed. I can't do with the inconvenience of living without them." Jeffrey Rosen is President and CEO of the N ..read more

What is the true meaning of the pursuit of happiness? What can we learn from the Founding Fathers about achieving harmony, balance, tranquility, self-mastery, and pursuing the public good? Jeffrey Rosen is President and CEO of the National Constitution Center, where he hosts We the People, a weekly podcast of constitutional debate. He is also a professor of law at the George Washington University Law School and a contributing editor at The Atlantic. Rosen is a graduate of Harvard College, Oxford University, and Yale Law School. He is the author of seven previous books, including the ..read more