Dear Reader,
Lately I’ve been feeling the difference between being on the website formerly known as Twitter and being on Substack. I find myself spending more time here and less time there. So, to offer some gratitude for this social space, here are a couple of my favorite things from Substack this past week.
Susan Cain is the author of The Quiet Life. I really appreciate her work. This piece on setting boundaries felt timely to me, as I desperately try to finish writing a book on loneliness (which requires a lot of solitude).
And it featured a cool archival find from E.B. White:
Pete Davis and Elias Crim have launched a new podcast called The Lost Prophets. Each episode looks at a figure from the past in order to shed light on our present.
Arendt called this activity “pearl diving.” Of course, she was stealing from Shakespeare, W.H. Auden, and Walter Benjamin. But, her idea was that we could dig up gems once they’ve undergone their sea-change (the passage of time) to illuminate the present.
Here is Episode #1 on Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
I stumbled across Friedrich Nietzsche’s 10 Rules for writing with style:
And a poem for your Sunday, “Lost” by David Wagoner
Until soon,
Sam
October course: Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism
Enroll here.
When Hannah Arendt published The Origins of Totalitarianism in 1951 she set out to provide a political framework for understanding the phenomenal appearance of National Socialism in the world, and its terrifying consequences. Offering a historical account of imperialism, anti-Semitism, and the atomized individual, Arendt’s work remains one of the most profound attempts at understanding the underlying social, political, and economic conditions that enabled totalitarianism to emerge.
In this course, students will read the entirety of the text and consider Arendt’s accounts of modern antisemitism, the spread of imperialism, and the human rights crisis engendered by the normalization of the nation-state following the First World War. In what ways did the institution of racism, as a form of ideology that collapsed the private and public realms, create an “iron-band” of totalitarianism? How was the rise of totalitarianism linked to the nation-state and the dissolution of heterogeneous modes of living together? And what are the contemporary implications of Arendt’s critique in this new era of refugees and statelessness, wherein the living conditions of “mere life” remain horrifically common?
Hi, Sam--Sharing this on my Facebook page. I've also been enjoying your chat with Paul Holdengraber. It's got me listening to David Rintoul's audiobook version of 'The Magic Mountain' -- for the third time. Many thanks!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSs_00ezhYA&t=6s
Hi Sam, Thanks for this--I read Susan Cain's book and am interested to read her article. FWIW, I've found a home on Bluesky---something that's cool there is that people are creating "starter packs" so one can quickly find of individuals of interest. For example, David M. Perry created one for medievalists. Different atmosphere there than Twitter, for sure!