Politics and Culture — History and Literature — With Max and Ethan
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Max Staley And Ethan Pack Podcasts
We complete our discussion of iconoclasm, monuments, and statues. How do symbolic and material inequalities interact in the public sphere? What is the relationship between statues of racist Americans and structural racism in America today? Ethan schools Max on structuralism in order to make it all make sense. This wraps up a yearlong journey for th…
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Episode 13: May Contain Putsch-Like Substance
1:17:45
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Ethan and Max literally make a podcast about people literally storming the US Capitol Building instead of going to therapy. The triumphant return of Literally Everything is overshadowed by troubling events in Washington D.C. Continuing a debate we have had in private over the past four interminable years, we discuss how the "events" of January 6th …
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Literally Everything is back with a two-part discussion of iconoclasm: the destruction of statues. The topic is in the news today, with monuments around the country and indeed the globe coming down, either toppled by protestors or removed quietly by local governments. But this phenomenon has deep roots in our history, which is what we discuss in pa…
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Episode 11: Epistemological Contagion
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Ethan and Max discuss the CoVid-19 crisis "as an epistemological event." Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that deals with knowledge — what do we know to be true? What criteria do we use to decide what is a fact? How do we organize our knowledge? We all have intuitive answers to these questions, but they have been put under tremendous pressu…
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Episode 10: Eschatological Fixation
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Max and Ethan discuss the history of apocalyptic thought, from its roots in post-exilic Hebrew literature, to its central place in early Christian thought, and finally its secularized modern form. To what extent is our understanding of contemporary crises shaped by religious ideas from thousands of years ago. We use climate change as an example, be…
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It's a supersized episode this week! First, Max and Ethan debrief after watching their hometown teams go head-to-head in the Big Game, the Literally Everything Bowl. Ethan's Chiefs won, but it's okay because Max is already over it — so over it, in fact, that he doesn't even bring up how problematic the Tomahawk Chop is. Then, we have a long convers…
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A deep dive on circumcision! We talk about the various contexts that intersect on this highly sensitive issue — much more sensitive than other issues, to hear some people talk about it. From public health to religious freedom, we cover, or uncover (depending on your preference) it all. Most of all, we try to understand: why is it that European libe…
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At long last, the fabled second segment from our most recent episode! We discuss Mohammad Hassan Khalil's excellent book, Jihad, Radicalism, and the New Atheism. Khalil persuasively argues that the New Atheists — a group of "rationalist" critics of religion who hold that Islam commands its adherents to kill unbelievers — uncritically adopt the radi…
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Episode 6: Israeli Election Special
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Israel is holding an election and we go deep on its implications for the future of the country itself, the occupation, and American Jews' relationship with Zionism. What is Netanyahu's position within the Israeli right? What abou the Israeli left — remember them? And what are American Jews supposed to think about it all? We go long on this topic, s…
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Lately it seems like our world is headed back to the Middle Ages, with its brutal violence, strict hierarchies, and absolute monarchs. Worse yet, some people on the alt-Right think this is a good thing! We discuss how scholars of the Medieval period grapple with the use (and abuse) of their field of study, and whether identity politics can help sor…
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This week, Max calls in from Italy, where he is traveling with his European in-laws. We regale you with tales of the original summer vacation, the so-called "Grand Tour" taken by young British artistocrats to sample the beautiful scenery and classical sites of the Continent. Ethan discusses how the young, rich, and sexy authors behind English Roman…
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We begin with a discussion about whether hotdogs are sandwiches — and how the debate illustrates the difference between realism and nominalism, the two rival movements within medieval philosophy. Then, we talk about a recent article on race relations in Hawaii, indigeneity, and settler colonialism. A technical note: due to editing difficulties, the…
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Episode 2: I Left My Art in San Francisco
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We discuss the ongoing controversy about a mural in San Francisco's Washington High School. Does the mental health of students outweigh the artistic merit and pedagogical value of the mural, which is critical of America's history? More importantly, what kinds of assumptions and vocabularies are operative in this debate? We try to develop a more cri…
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It's the first episode of Literally Everything! Ethan and Max host a podcast about politics, culture, history and literature — all the ideas that shape the world around us. In this episode, we discuss Trump's attitude toward Iran and North Korea within the framework of "Orientalism," adopting a comparative approach to the ways in which Western atti…
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