Public Intellectual

BU Professor Ashley Mears details the leisure of the wealthy in her new book, Very Important People, but also the men and "girls" who live in their periphery. Examining the nightlife of the moneyed, from the ecstatic destruction of wealth to the exclusive locales they circulate around, we discuss the gender of money and why being "chosen" will always feel good.  Support this podcast: http://patreo...

With all the media struggles lately, a conversation has emerged: should the journalist strive to be an objective observer, or should they be the moral arbiter? Who better to come on to help Jessa figure this out than JoAnn Wypijewski, who has been covering media moral panics for years? Author of the new collection of essays and reporting What We Don't Talk About When We Talk About MeToo, we discus...

Somehow, the conversation around historical racism and bigotry and police brutality turned into a series of... resignations by white voice actors in cartoons? Yes, we're talking about representation in film yet again, and Vincent Chabany-Douarre, creator of the new Katharine's Kapital project, comes on to discuss what Depression-era films have to teach us, and why watching Katharine Hepburn films...

While many cities and states offered protection from evictions during the beginning months of the pandemic, many of those protections have expired and people are losing their houses. Tara Raghuveer of KC Tenants speaks to Jessa about making housing the central issue for all local government, about the tenant bill of rights, and the spitefulness of landlords.  Support this podcast: http://patreon.c...

I know, we're all against voting and progress through elections right now, but the triumph of Brandon Scott over Sheila Dixon and assorted other neoliberal powerbrokers in Baltimore is potentially significant. I'm re-releasing the conversation I had with Brandon Scott before he announced he was running for mayor, about trying to turn leftist rhetoric and idealism into real policy in a troubled cit...

What does a fully inclusive city look like? With issues like policing, housing, child care, surveillance, and education in the news, due to the uprising and the pandemic, Leslie Kern and I consider what a city that is built for the use of all people -- not just the professional class -- could look like. Support this podcast: http://patreon.com/publicintellectual http://jessacrispin.com

Frank A von Hippel takes us through the surprising relationship of disease and war, from how the treatment of malaria facilitated colonialism, how weapons against disease carrying pests were used against human beings in war and riot, the development of tear gas, and the coming insect apocalypse.  Support this podcast: http://patreon.com/publicintellectual http://jessacrispin.com

Excuse the click-baity title. Caren Beilin had a copper IUD implanted, and was overwhelmed with health issues almost immediately. Six days later, the IUD was removed, but the damage, including the sparking of an autoimmune disorder, was done. Many women report similar serious problems, yet this information is very hard to come by in the consultation room. Beilin joins Jessa to talk about medicine'...

Alec Ryrie, the author of Unbelievers: An Emotional History of Doubt, joins Jessa to discuss how faith and doubt operate together, skepticism as a contagion, and the legacy of the New Atheists.  Support this podcast: http://patreon.com/publicintellectual http://jessacrispin.com

Ben Lerner's The Topeka School was recently shortlisted for the Pulitzer, and critics have been raving about its insight into Trump Country. But... how good is it? Christopher Piatt and Jessa, two former small town, rural Kansans, read the Topeka School and discuss all of its hot takes on red state culture, its shallow research on the deep weirdness of Kansas, and why it is no longer expected for...

For all of the think pieces about why Millennials aren't having as many children as previous generations -- maybe they are too selfish blah blah blah -- very few ever hit on how very difficult it is to raise a child in America right now, where every resource from decent schooling and child care, must not only be sought out but competed for. Jessa speaks with Maxine Eichner, author of The Free Mark...

Tiger King was a sensation, so a million words had to be spilled in response. Most of those words accused the Netflix docuseries itself of being immoral, misogynistic, exploitative. Rather than just depicting immorality, misogyny, and exploitation. Why do we look to our entertainment to teach us moral lessons, why do we need so many strong female heroines, why do we need our filmmakers, writers, a...

Jason Pine (The Alchemy of Meth) joins Jessa to discuss the invisibility of America's drug crisis. Pine spent a year in Missouri to research his book on the overwhelming presence of meth, an extremely common and yet almost entirely invisible issue. But this is also a conversation about creativity under late capitalism, the health care crisis, and exploitation vs representation.  Support this podca...

The shelter in place and work from home orders are straining domestic spaces, and it feels like the most professional and public feminist speakers are not up the task of imagining how to respond. What is the "feminist angle" on the coronavirus? It's not just that men need to do more housework. We need to re-imagine the domestic sphere now that this crisis is showing its weaknesses. Breanne Fahs (F...

Anne Case and Angus Deaton released Deaths of Despair this year, the culmination of their study into how your education level determines how much pain you'll experience in life, how long you'll live, and your ability to fend off addiction and despair. Basically: if you lack a college degree, you will die sooner and live harder. Anne Case joins Jessa to discuss these "forgotten" men and women. Supp...

Jim Behrle reports from the tumbleweeds of Time Square to discuss eco-fascism, why the bees should just take over, how to get through this sheltering-in-place with arts and crafts, and the respective strengths of our wills to live. Support this podcast: http://patreon.com/publicintellectual http://jessacrispin.com

Joe Kennedy, author of Authentocrats: Culture, Politics and the New Seriousness, swings by to talk about the parallels between the UK and US elections, how everyone loves to be pandered to, why the "forgotten" white working class voter is more complex than the politician pretending to be one, why American politicians absolutely must be photographed eating corn dogs, animosity toward the cosmopolit...

We're releasing this bonus episode from the Patreon vaults. Come subscribe to our Patreon and get content like this all the time! (Or, you know, on a semi-regular basis, we have jobs and so on.) Regular bonus episode co-host Margaret Howie joins Jessa to talk about the outspoken career of Sinead O'Connor, and how she has paid the price for that outspokenness.  Support this podcast: http://patreon....

Why are celebrity crushes so embarrassing? Critic and editor Jennifer Hodgson joins Jessa to overintellectualize their shared crush on Bill Hader, to think about female desire, how celebrity crushes are labor, and why we suddenly find ourselves attracted to a middle aged father of three from the American midwest.  http://jessacrispin.com Support this podcast: http://patreon.com/publicintellectual

JoAnn Wypijewski joins Jessa to discuss the Weinstein trial and conviction, after writing about it for the Nation. We discuss how trials for sexual violence have changed rapidly over the last few years, how the media gave a misleading account of how the trial was going, and why the sexual predator has such a fairy tale-like quality in our culture. http://jessacrispin.com Support this podcast: http...

Professor of Law at York University Heidi Matthews has been writing about "creepiness," particularly as it relates to gender relations. What causes a man to be labeled a creep? What do we do about the creeps in our neighborhood? Why, with all we know about police violence, do we turn to the cops when we encounter someone we consider creepy? Are we just trying to increase marginalization on already...

Jessa talks to writer Susan Ellen Finlay (Objektophilia) about the difficult position of small, independent publishers in today's cultural climate.  http://jessacrispin.com Support this podcast: http://patreon.com/publicintellectual

With all of the publishing scandals going on, I thought it made sense to re-up this conversation with novelist John Biguenet. Why is the standard narrative in American writing the narrative of victimhood? How do we move past seeing creativity as only a form of personal expression?  http://patreon.com/publicintellectual http://jessacrispin.com

Richard Davies is the author of "Extreme Economies: And What They Can Teach Us." He visits places like Santiago, Chile to examine income inequality, Akita, Japan to see what happens when a population starts to age dramatically, refugee camps and prisons, and environmental disaster zones. What causes resiliency? How does a city or a community create a shared project?  Support: http://patreon.com/pu...

Gerald Russello, the editor of University Bookman and conservative intellectual, joins Jessa Crispin to talk about the growing political divide in American politics, and how the left is just as annoying as the right.    Support this podcast: patreon.com/publicintellectual