Best Sarah Jaffe Podcasts (2024)

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Episode 8 - Sarah Simka Jaffe 1:32:57

4h ago1:32:57

1:32:57

Episode 8 - Sarah Simka Jaffe // Director of Photography. -- “Sarah Simka Jaffe. You know what she is? She’s a GOAT. She’s a truly inspiring friend of mine who posses this extraordinary blend of warmth, talent, and joy. Her perspective on the world, the way she interacts with others, alongside her boundless creativity are extremely captivating and …

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64: Grief, Loss, and Love feat. Sarah Jaffe 1:44:26

3d ago1:44:26

1:44:26

Abby and Patrick welcome labor journalist Sarah Jaffe – author of Necessary Trouble and Work Won’t Love You Back – for her first interview about her forthcoming book, From the Ashes: Grief and Revolution in a World on Fire. From the Ashes is at once a deeply personal narrative and a wide-ranging journey of searing reportage on the lives and struggl…

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66: Teens, Cops, and Spies: The Varieties of Hysterical Experience feat. Dan Taberski 1:24:39

24m ago1:24:39

1:24:39

Abby and Patrick welcome Dan Taberski, creator of the brand-new podcast series Hysterical. They explore the genesis of the series and the challenges and rewards of confronting both the history and the present of “the H-word.” Tracking the trajectories of this famously “elusive neurosis,” Hysterical looks to episodes from colonial America to Belle E…

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65: Standard Edition Volume 1 Part 11: The Project for a Scientific Psychology Part 2 Teaser 6:24

4d ago6:24

6:24

Subscribe to get access to the full episode, the episode reading list, and all premium episodes! www.patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness Abby, Patrick, and Dan continue their journey through the Project for a Scientific Psychology. They explore how the Project reflects recent developments in technology, and how Freud is staging an intervention into ong…

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Episode 7 - Justin Plumer III 1:46:38

2h ago1:46:38

1:46:38

Episode 7 - Justin Plummer III // Director. Filmmaker. -- “Justin Plummer III - now that’s a freaking name. Whenever I hear names with a touch of grandeur, like that, I can’t help but pause and take notice. And trust me, you’ll want to do the same for today’s episode of BEDROOM™. Justin is a remarkably talented film director, and if you've ever bee…

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Episode 6 - Rob Schell 2:20:46

2h ago2:20:46

2:20:46

Episode 6 - Rob Schell // Skateboarder. Skateboard Filmmaker. Movie Enthusiast. -- “First and foremost, Rob is the homie. He likes Dinosaur Jr., he’s a beast in the kitchen, has extremely good taste in all things related to the arts, and ultimately - and most importantly - he’s just an overall joy to be around. He’s a solid, educated, and relatable…

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63: The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema, Part I Teaser 6:17

6d ago6:17

6:17

Subscribe to get access to the full episode, the episode reading list, and all premium episodes! www.patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness Abby and Dan get into the first part of Slavoj Zizek’s The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema (2006, directed by Sophie Fiennes). They consider one of the film’s core propositions – that cinema is an instruction in how and wha…

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Episode 5 - Keri Shewmaker 1:58:37

9d ago1:58:37

1:58:37

Episode 5 - Keri Shewmaker // Production Designer. Set Decorator. Filmmaker. -- “In the world of film making, I’ve somehow found myself as a Director. One thing I’ve learned about this role is that it’s very important to surround yourself with key-role collaborators that you 100% trust in order to uphold your creative vision - and dare I say - make…

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62: Lacan and Psychosis in the City feat. Loren Dent 2:07:14

10d ago2:07:14

2:07:14

Abby and Patrick welcome Loren Dent, a clinical psychologist in the Lacanian tradition. The topic is psychosis, both as understood theoretically by Freud and Lacan, and also as experienced and encountered by real people in New York City, where Loren practices and where he has helped establish an innovative program of treatment and care. Starting by…

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Episode 4 - Mild Universe 1:48:17

20d ago1:48:17

1:48:17

Episode 4 - Mild Universe // A San Francisco Band. -- “What do you get when you combine Disco and Psychedelic? The answer is Discodelic. But what do you get when you combine Discodelic and San Francisco? I’ll tell you, you get the band Mild Universe! San Francisco’s Mild Universe is a dreamy dance-music band that combines funk, disco, jazz, and psy…

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61: Gerontophallocracy 2024: Reality Testing and Temporal Distortion (It’s So Joever) Teaser 3:34

1M ago3:34

3:34

Subscribe to get access to the full episode, the episode reading list, and all premium episodes! www.patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness Abby and Patrick power through COVID brain fog to process Sunday’s announcement and the past few weeks of relentless breaking news. What do times like these do to our ability to process time in general? What do the ti…

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60: Love and Work feat. Joseph Earl Thomas 1:40:34

26d ago1:40:34

1:40:34

Abby and Patrick welcome writer and academic Joseph Earl Thomas, author of the 2023 memoir Sink and a new novel, God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer. Set over the course of a single, chaotic day in a North Philadelphia hospital, Thomas’ novel unfolds across a multiplicity of geographies and timelines, and weaves together a dense network of human attachm…

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Episode 3 - Kel Troughton 1:22:27

1M ago1:22:27

1:22:27

Episode 3 - Kel Troughton // Type Designer. Lettering Artist. Graffiti Enthusiast. Educator. -- “Back when I was a teenager and I fell in love with art making, the form that initially captivated me was graffiti. In the small town of Sonoma where I grew up there wasn’t much of a graffiti scene but there was one gem among the rough... spraying and ta…

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Episode 2 - DJ Basta 2:01:09

1M ago2:01:09

2:01:09

Episode 2 - DJ Basta // Producer. DJ. Beat Maker. Visual Artist. Teacher. -- “DJ Basta, aka Nick Basta , was one of my earliest visual art idols. Growing up where we did in our little northern pocket of the Bay Area, Nick was somehow tapped-in to a larger cultural scene of the outlier arts. Things like Graffiti, Hip Hop, Reggae, Block Parties, they…

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Episode 1 - Owen Tuttle 1:35:22

2M ago1:35:22

1:35:22

Episode 1 - Owen Tuttle // Patrick's High School Art Teacher. Artist. Shepherd. Cowboy. Legend. -- "Owen was my high school art teacher, but more than that he was my Master Yoda. When I was a wild and crazy senior in high school, Owen helped tame the beast that I was by assigning me a specialized curriculum. He, for some reason, saw a budding passi…

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59: Gerontophallocracy 2024: The June Debate Teaser 2:45

2M ago2:45

2:45

Subscribe to get access to the full episode, the episode reading list, and all premium episodes! www.patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness The season is here. The time is now. It’s the most important election of our lifetimes (again). And to help navigate it all, Abby, Patrick, and Dan are launching a new series: Gerontophallocracy 2024. In this first in…

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58: Wild Analysis: The Idea of You feat. Anna Shechtman Teaser 2:41

2M ago2:41

2:41

Subscribe to get access to the full episode, the episode reading list, and all premium episodes! www.patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness Abby, Patrick, and Dan are joined by writer, academic, and cruciverbalist Anna Shechtman (author of the recent book The Riddles of The Sphinx: Inheriting the Feminist History of the Crossword Puzzle) to unpack the den…

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57: “Do More Crosswords!” The Sexual Politics of Language feat. Anna Shechtman 1:30:20

2M ago1:30:20

1:30:20

Abby and Patrick welcome writer, academic, and cruciverbalist Anna Shechtman, author of The Riddles of the Sphinx: Inheriting the Feminist History of the Crossword Puzzle, a book that’s part personal memoir, part cultural history, and part meditation on what it means to care about meaning in the first place. In typically overdetermined fashion, the…

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56: Standard Edition Volume 1 Part 10: The Project for a Scientific Psychology Part 1 Teaser 5:22

2M ago5:22

5:22

Subscribe to get access to the full episode, the episode reading list, and all premium episodes! www.patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness Abby, Patrick, and Dan turn to one of Freud’s earliest and strangest works: an untitled “psychology for neurologists,” begun in shorthand on a moving train, which went unpublished until 1950. Grappling with the text i…

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55: What is the Pleasure Principle? feat. Rebecca Ariel Porte 1:50:40

3M ago1:50:40

1:50:40

Abby and Patrick welcome scholar and literary critic Rebecca Ariel Porte of Dilettante Army and the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research to talk about the key Freudian concept of the pleasure principle. Starting with Freud’s 1911 essay, “Formulations Regarding Two Principles of Mental Functioning,” Rebecca, Abby, and Patrick probe the complicated…

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54: Wild Analysis: Challengers Teaser 2:37

3M ago2:37

2:37

Subscribe to get access to the full episode, the episode reading list, and all premium episodes! www.patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness Abby, Patrick, and Dan sit down for a postgame analysis of Luca Guadagnino’s new film “Challengers”, a torrid tale of a trio whose shared passion is tennis – and who would rather spend their days on the court than sim…

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53: Broke Psychoanalysis: Harlem’s Lafargue Clinic feat. Kevin Duong 1:34:37

3M ago1:34:37

1:34:37

Patrick and Abby welcome politics professor Kevin Duong to discuss his research on the history of the Lafargue Clinic (1946-1958), an experiment in radical psychoanalysis aimed at providing free care to marginalized community members in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City. Bringing together American notables like Richard Wright and Ralph Ellis…

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52: Standard Edition Volume 1 Part 9: Repression is a Scorpio: The Final Fliess Extracts feat. Christine Smallwood Teaser 4:35

4M ago4:35

4:35

Subscribe to get access to the full episode, the episode reading list, and all premium episodes! www.patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness In the final installment of the Fliess Extracts portion of the Standard Edition, we are joined by novelist and literary critic Christine Smallwood. These last letters see Freud really feeling himself as a stylist – an…

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51: Psychoanalysis and Gaza feat. Jess Ghannam 1:23:15

4M ago1:23:15

1:23:15

Abby and Patrick welcome Palestinian psychoanalyst and psychologist Dr. Jess Ghannam to talk about his twenty-five years of work doing empirical research and carrying out public health initiatives in Gaza. They discuss his studies of mental health in refugees from across the Middle East and in Palestinian children; intergenerational histories of tr…

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LIVE: The 1619 Project w/ Nikole Hannah-Jones 46:49

4M ago46:49

46:49

In this episode we talk to Pulitzer-Prize winning reporter Nikole Hannah-Jones on her groundbreaking 1619 Project. The 1619 Project is The New York Times Magazine’s award-winning reframing of American history that places slavery and its continuing legacy at the center of the countries’ national narrative. It offers a revealing new origin story for …

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50: Political Disappointment feat. Sara Marcus 1:12:33

4M ago1:12:33

1:12:33

Abby and Patrick are joined by academic, journalist, and critic Sara Marcus, author of the 2023 book Political Disappointment: A Cultural History from Reconstruction to the AIDS Crisis. After recalling their own experiences of political letdowns – infantile, adolescent, and all-too-recent – they explore how Sara’s notion of disappointment as “untim…

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49: Wild Analysis: Civil War Teaser 5:03

4M ago5:03

5:03

Subscribe to get access to the full episode, the episode reading list, and all premium episodes! www.patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness While Abby’s voice is still gone, Dan and Patrick take in a film on opening day and subject it to some wild analysis. The movie is Civil War (2024), and, to hear director Alex Garland tell it, it’s a dire warning of h…

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UNLOCKED: 21: Wild Analysis: The Trauma Plot and the Joss Whedon Extended Cinematic Universe 1:35:21

5M ago1:35:21

1:35:21

Abby lost her voice, so we're unlocking a favorite from behind the paywall! We'll be back next week with more Wild Analysis followed by an interview with the brilliant Sara Marcus on her book Political Disappointment. Unlocked Patreon episode. Support Ordinary Unhappiness on Patreon to get access to all the exclusive episodes. patreon.com/OrdinaryU…

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48: Standard Edition Volume 1 Part 8: Oedipus Approaches: The Fliess Extracts, Continued feat. Christine Smallwood Teaser 2:24

5M ago2:24

2:24

Subscribe to get access to the full episode, the episode reading list, and all premium episodes! www.patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness In the latest installment of the Standard Edition – and our penultimate episode on the Freud-Fliess letters! – we are joined by novelist and literary critic Christine Smallwood. We ask what “phantasy” is as opposed to…

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47: Extraction, Exhaustion, and the Problem with Resilience feat. Ajay Singh Chaudhary 2:07:59

5M ago2:07:59

2:07:59

Abby and Patrick welcome Ajay Singh Chaudhary, Executive Director of the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research and author of The Exhausted of the Earth: Politics in a Burning World. In our conversation, Ajay breaks down competing left- and right-wing versions of climate “realism” and how fantasy, cynicism, and opportunism explain the gaps between …

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Episode 46: Wild Analysis: Dune Teaser 3:12

5M ago3:12

3:12

Subscribe to get access to the full episode, the episode reading list, and all premium episodes! www.patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness Abby, Patrick, and Dan take on Denis Villeneuve’s Dune Parts 1 and 2, Frank Herbert’s novel Dune, and a loud noise that goes [BRAAAAM]. After a crash overview of the franchise universe and a synopsis of the series plo…

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45: The Fantasy of Family and the Meaning of Family Abolition feat. Sophie Lewis and M.E. O’Brien 2:03:22

6M ago2:03:22

2:03:22

Abby and Patrick welcome writer Sophie Lewis and writer and psychotherapist M.E. O’Brien to discuss their recent books on family abolition, Abolish the Family: A Manifesto for Care and Liberation and Family Abolition: Capitalism and the Communizing of Care. They discuss the roots of “abolition” as a philosophical concept, why it doesn’t simply mean…

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44: Standard Edition Volume 1 Part 7: The Prehistoric Other and the Great Lord Penis: The Fliess Extracts, Continued feat. Christine Smallwood Teaser 2:54

6M ago2:54

2:54

Subscribe to get access to the full episode, the episode reading list, and all premium episodes! www.patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness In the latest installment of the Standard Edition, we discuss a number of the letters in the Fliess section of SE Volume 1 with novelist and literary critic Christine Smallwood. We examine a complex letter about memor…

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43: The Mirror Crack’d: The Mirror Stage, Part III 1:15:01

6M ago1:15:01

1:15:01

Abby, Patrick, and Dan conclude their adventure through Lacan’s mirror stage! They reprise Lacan’s parable of the mirror-besotted baby and tie together the many threads – theoretical, clinical, and philosophical – woven through it. They walk through how Lacan musters evidence for his argument using both cases of pathology (i.e. psychosis) and “norm…

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LIVE: How Universities are Plundering Our Cities w/ Davarian Baldwin 1:01:11

6M ago1:01:11

1:01:11

In this episode we listen to a lecture by and interview with urbanist and historian Davarian L. Baldwin on the occasion of his highly acclaimed book In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities are Plundering Our Cities. Urban universities play an important and outsized role in cities. They bring diverse ideas and people together and they gen…

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42: Wild Analysis: The President’s Analyst Teaser 5:18

7M ago5:18

5:18

Subscribe to get access to the full episode, the episode reading list, and all premium episodes! www.patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness In a perfect pairing with our ongoing series on Lacan, we come in from the cold and go underground by watching Theodore Flicker’s neglected classic, “The President’s Analyst” (1967). James Coburn stars as a psychoanal…

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41: Identification and Misrecognition: The Mirror Stage, Part II 1:03:24

7M ago1:03:24

1:03:24

Our journey through Lacan’s “mirror stage” continues as the scene before the mirror unfolds into a tragic drama. Abby, Patrick, and Dan unpack the many meanings of “identification” and how, for Lacan, the self-identification the baby “assumes” from the slick image in the mirror offers a template for all subsequent identifications. They also talk ab…

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40: Standard Edition Volume 1 Part 6: The Symptom is a Compromise: The Fliess Extracts, Continued feat. Christine Smallwood Teaser 4:06

7M ago4:06

4:06

Subscribe to get access to the full episode, the episode reading list, and all premium episodes! www.patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness In the latest installment of the Standard Edition, we valiantly soldier through more of the Fliess Extracts section of SE Volume 1 with novelist and literary critic Christine Smallwood. We discuss the Freud-Fliess sib…

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LIVE: How Food Can Save the World w/ Carolyn Steel 1:11:53

7M ago1:11:53

1:11:53

In this podcast we will listen to a lecture by Carolyn Steel, architect and author of the award-winning Hungry City: How Food Shapes Our Lives and Sitopia: How Food Can Save the World. From our foraging hunter-gatherer ancestors to the enormous appetites of modern cities, food has shaped our bodies and homes, our politics and trade, and our climate…

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39: It’s Not You, It’s Lacan: The Mirror Stage, Part I 1:53:29

7M ago1:53:29

1:53:29

Abby, Patrick, and Dan kick off their 2024 Lacan era by tackling his single most famous essay and concept: the mirror stage. Because Lacan is notoriously difficult, this is going to take multiple episodes, of which the first is devoted to stage-setting, demystifying, and unpacking exactly why Lacan is both so notoriously difficult, and also notorio…

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38: Wild Analysis: Taylor Swift Teaser 5:23

7M ago5:23

5:23

Subscribe to get access to the full episode, the episode reading list, and all premium episodes! www.patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness We set out to discuss the Eras tour film but got drawn into the broader cultural phenomenon that is Taylor Swift. Along the way, we talk about the concepts of cathexis and the Big Other; our own embarrassing childhood…

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UNLOCKED: 25: Wild Analysis: Barbie 1:27:54

8M ago1:27:54

1:27:54

Abby and Patrick are traveling, so enjoy this unlocked Patreon episode. Support Ordinary Unhappiness on Patreon to get access to all the exclusive episodes. patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness We talk about one of the biggest cinematic releases of the year: Barbie. We get into the film’s gender politics and vision of sexual difference; dolls, children’…

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LIVE: Climate Politics w/ Heleen de Coninck 27:52

8M ago27:52

27:52

Twelve months. That is the time the world now has for global greenhouse gas emissions to start to fall. If not, we will miss the chance to avoid the worst impacts of the climate crisis. According to the 2022 report on mitigation by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) the world can still hope to stave off the worst ravages of climat…

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37: New Year’s Mailbag: The Capacity for Change Teaser 2:37

8M ago2:37

2:37

Subscribe to get access to the full episode, the episode reading list, and all premium episodes! www.patreon.com/OrdinaryUnhappiness We reflect on an (overdetermined) nine-month anniversary for Ordinary Unhappiness, including conversations with guests and reading recommendations – and then we take your calls! The mailbag includes a question about t…

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36: Hate, Help, and Housing: Psychoanalysis and Social Work feat. Brian Ngo-Smith 1:36:04

8M ago1:36:04

1:36:04

Abby and Patrick welcome psychoanalyst and clinical social worker Brian Ngo-Smith, President of the American Association for Psychoanalysis in Clinical Social Work (AAPCSW). Focusing on his paper “This Couch Has Bed Bugs: On the Homelessness of Psychoanalysis and the Psychoanalysis of Homelessness,” they talk about psychotherapy with unhoused clien…

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35: Standard Edition Volume 1 Part 5: Fragments, Paranoia, and Projection: The Fliess Extracts, Continued feat. Christine Smallwood Teaser 6:43

8M ago6:43

6:43

In the latest installment of the Standard Edition, Abby continues the conversation about the Fliess Extracts section of SE Volume 1 with novelist and literary critic Christine Smallwood. We discuss fragments, continuity and discontinuity, and narrative and lack thereof; the first instances of the use of the terms libido and projection and what they…

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34: Fatphobia and Moral Feelings feat. Kate Manne 1:37:00

9M ago1:37:00

1:37:00

Abby and Patrick welcome philosopher Kate Manne, author of Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny (2017), Entitled: How Male Privilege Hurts Women (2020), and the forthcoming Unshrinking: How to Face Fatphobia (2024). They discuss our moral emotions – shame, contempt, disgust, abjection – and what they signal; the ideological ranking of bodies into speci…

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Clint Smith on Cultures of Remembrance in the U.S. & Germany 1:02:12

8M ago1:02:12

1:02:12

“Physically putting your body in a place where history happened gives you a different sense of intimacy, a different sense of proximity to that history.” In the final episode of our podcast, author, poet, and scholar Clint Smith speaks about the importance of collectively reckoning with history, the legacy of slavery in U.S.-American identity, and …

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Marina Weisband on What Gets us Through the Crisis 56:11

9M ago56:11

56:11

“Going through a crisis and having a positive vision of the future are not the same thing. You need to have a positive vision of the future to get through the crisis.” Our hosts, Aida Baghernejad and Tom Zoellner, interview politician and publicist Marina Weisband for this special episode, recorded live at the international literatur festival berli…

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33: The Problem with Empathy feat. Jade E. Davis 1:27:21

9M ago1:27:21

1:27:21

Abby and Patrick welcome Jade E. Davis, author of the new book The Other Side of Empathy. They discuss Jade’s critique of naïve notions of “empathy” and what she calls “empathy culture.” They examine the ways empathy can flatten suffering, demand particular performances of suffering, and serve fantasies that there’s one “right way” to suffer and th…

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Sarah Jaffe Podcasts

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