Van Leer Institute Series on Ideas Podcast Por New Books Network arte de portada

Van Leer Institute Series on Ideas

Van Leer Institute Series on Ideas

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 Interviews with thought-leaders about their new books. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/van-leer-instituteNew Books Network Arte Ciencias Sociales Historia y Crítica Literaria Mundial
Episodios
  • Cary Nelson, "Mindless: What Happened to Universities?" (Jewish Quarterly 259, 2025)

    Cary Nelson, "Mindless: What Happened to Universities?" (Jewish Quarterly 259, 2025)
    Jun 13 2025
    In Mindless: What Happened to Universities?, renowned scholar and former president of the American Association of University Professors Cary Nelson delivers a searing indictment of modern higher education. Once bastions of open debate and critical thinking, universities have become ideological battlegrounds where dissent is silenced, academic freedom is under siege, and antisemitism is repackaged as social justice. Against the backdrop of Hamas’ brutal invasion of Israel and massacre of civilians on October 7, 2023, and the war that followed, Nelson examines how anti-Zionist activism has overtaken campuses, transforming student protests into rigid political movements that brook no opposition. With chilling examples—from faculty members who celebrated Hamas attacks to university administrators who failed to protect Jewish students—Mindless exposes how radical ideology has reshaped the very nature of learning. In this urgent and provocative work, Nelson explores the emotional and social toll of this shift, the complicity of university leadership, and the role of social media in fueling division. He challenges readers to ask: Can the university still be saved? And if not, what does that mean for the future of education—and for society itself? A must-read for educators, students, and anyone concerned about the fate of intellectual freedom, Mindless is both a wake-up call and a call to action. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/van-leer-institute
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    35 m
  • Owen Flanagan, "What Is It Like to Be an Addict?: Understanding Substance Abuse" (Oxford UP, 2025)

    Owen Flanagan, "What Is It Like to Be an Addict?: Understanding Substance Abuse" (Oxford UP, 2025)
    Jun 11 2025
    A powerful and important exploration of how addiction functions on social, psychological and biological levels, integrated with the experience of being an addict, from an acclaimed philosopher and former addict.What is addiction? Theories about what kind of thing addiction is are sharply divided between those who see it purely as a brain disorder, and those who conceive of it in psychological and social terms. Owen Flanagan, an acclaimed philosopher of mind and ethics, offers a state-of-the-art assessment of addiction science and proposes a new ecumenical model for understanding and explaining substance addiction.Flanagan has first-hand knowledge of what it is like to be an addict. That experience, along with his wide-ranging knowledge of the philosophy of mind, psychology, neuroscience, and the ethics and politics of addiction, informs this important and novel work. He pairs the sciences that study addiction with a sophisticated view of the consciousness-brain/body relation to make his core argument: that substance addictions comprise a heterogeneous set of "psychobiosocial" behavioral disorders. He explains that substance addictions do not have one set of causes, such as self-medication or social dislocation, and they do not have one neural profile, such as a dysfunction in dopamine system. Some addictions are fun and experimentation gone awry. Flanagan reveals addiction to be a heterogeneous set of disorders, which are picked out by multifarious cultural, social, psychological, and neural features.Flanagan explores the ways addicts sensibly insist on their own responsibility to undo addiction, as well as ways in which shame for addiction can be leveraged into healing. He insists on the collective shame we all bear for our indifference to many of the psychological and social causes of addiction and explores the implications of this new integrated paradigm for practices of harm reduction and treatment. Flanagan's powerful new book upends longstanding conventional thinking and points the way to new ways of understanding and treating addiction. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/van-leer-institute
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    43 m
  • Elaine Pagels, "Miracles and Wonder:The Historical Mystery of Jesus" (Doubleday, 2025)

    Elaine Pagels, "Miracles and Wonder:The Historical Mystery of Jesus" (Doubleday, 2025)
    May 12 2025
    Early in her career, Elaine Pagels changed our understanding of the origins of Christianity with her work in The Gnostic Gospels. Now, in the culmination of a decades-long career, she explores the biggest subject of all, Jesus. In Miracles and Wonder:The Historical Mystery of Jesus (Doubleday, 2025) she sets out to discover how a poor young Jewish man inspired a religion that shaped the world.The book reads like a historical mystery, with each chapter addressing a fascinating question and answering it based on the gospels Jesus's followers left behind. Why is Jesus said to have had a virgin birth? Why do we say he rose from the dead? Did his miracles really happen and what did they mean?The story Pagels tells is thrilling and tense. Not just does Jesus comes to life but his desperate, hunted followers do as well. We realize that some of the most compelling details of Jesus's life are the explanations his disciples created to paper over inconvenient facts. So Jesus wasn't illegitimate, his mother conceived by God; Jesus's body wasn't humiliatingly left to rot and tossed into a common grave—no, he rose from the dead and was seen whole by his followers; Jesus isn't a failed messiah, his kingdom is a metaphor: he lives in us. These necessary fabrications were the very details and promises that electrified their listeners and helped his followers' numbers grow.In Miracles and Wonder, Pagels does more than solve a historical mystery. She sheds light on Jesus's enduring power to inspire and attract. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/van-leer-institute
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    40 m
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