50 episodes listed below
Books, death, Ottomans and a dervish's tale, from Paris.
Several named series share this feed from the Paris Institute for Critical Thinking, among them Bookaholics, The Last Ottoman, Dates with Death and PICT Voices. In one episode a legal philosopher maps how religion can sit under the state, apart from it or within it, and in another a cloud polishes the moon and stars for a woman named Aisha.
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The Paris Institute for Critical Thinking runs several podcast series, and this feed carries a number of them side by side. That makes the series name at the start of each episode title the real signpost. Bookaholics is the book strand, and one of its interviewers introduces it by naming the vice every faculty member shares: an addiction to books. By house tradition, the author gets the first word. Christophe Van Houten's conversation with Jacob Soll about Free Market: The History of an Idea follows market thought back to Cicero, as reworked by mercantile republics, and makes a case for Colbert, finance minister to Louis XIV, as a central figure. A dry aside comes up along the way: economists insist nothing comes for free, yet treat the market itself as if it did. Stephanie Papa's episode with the poet Stuart Dischell takes up his collection The Lookout Man. She draws out the humor he lets into dark and uncomfortable moments, and brings in Paul Valéry on laughter and Stanley Kunitz's poem The Portrait as reference points. The Last Ottoman is a series about the Ottoman Empire and its legacy today. In it, David Selim Sayers sits down face to face with Iain T. Benson, a former barrister turned academic and legal philosopher. Benson sets out three ways religion can relate to the state: beneath it, separate from it, or cooperating within it like the interlocking Olympic rings. Sayers, for his part, says he reads history neither as obsolete nor as a mere preparation for the present. Dates with Death takes on a subject its opening describes as long treated as taboo in the West, and borrows from Cicero the idea that meditating on death is philosophy's defining task. Its guest Jan Age Sigvartsen, an adjunct professor in Old Testament studies, discusses death and the afterlife in apocalyptic and pseudepigraphic literature. Asked why death, he answers personally, recalling losing his mother in a car accident when he was nine and the resurrection hope of his faith. PICT Voices is the interview series, and it can turn to current events. With Zachary Foster, a historian of Palestine, Sayers asks whether the escalation after the Hamas incursion into Israel can lead anywhere but deeper radicalization; Foster says he cannot imagine a worse situation for either side. Among all this talk sits A Cloud In Love, a narrated fairy tale in which a dervish plays his ney beneath a cypress tree and trees, rivers and roads tumble out of it. A cloud falls for a woman named Aisha, polishes the moon and stars for her, and turns into a saz to sing her a lullaby. Several episodes end with an appeal to support the institute through membership. The easiest way in is by strand: Bookaholics for books, The Last Ottoman for history and law, Dates with Death for mortality, and A Cloud In Love for something else entirely.
Made for: Suits a listener who enjoys humanities conversations with scholars, authors and poets, and who is happy to choose episodes by series and subject rather than follow a single voice.
What sets it apart: Rather than sticking to one format, it gathers an institute's separate series in one feed, so a poetry interview, a legal philosopher on religious pluralism, a historian on Gaza and a narrated folk tale sit side by side.
The Paris Institute for Critical Thinking (PICT) is a non-profit educational organization based in Paris, France. Devoted to teaching and research in the humanities and arts, the institute offers a university-quality program of lectures, workshops, conferences, and 18-hour courses, all in the English language. Our aim is to provide a space for all English speakers regardless of background to engage in intellectual reflection and critical conversation. Subscribe above to follow our numerous Podcasts.
Ottoman law meets a cloud polishing the moon; your curiosity gets the deciding vote.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A ney, a cloud, and a stolen pouch pull a strange moral tale into motion.
A dervish's ney opens a world where trees, mountains, rivers, and roads pass through its holes and fall into a desert on the other side of the world. Shady Safey arrives by that same impossible route, steals the dervish's money pouch, and is launched skyward by a thrown stone.
A historically grounded Gaza discussion that follows October 7 into the grim logic of escalation.
Zachary Foster frames Gaza through the years before October 7, beginning with Israel's 2007 blockade and the isolation of Gaza's 2.3 million Palestinians.
Ottoman religious pluralism meets contemporary constitutional law in a wide-ranging Paris conversation.
The fourth episode of The Last Ottoman turns from imperial memory toward the legal life of religious pluralism. David Selim Sayers is joined by Ian Benson, a former barrister and now an academic and legal philosopher, for a conversation that links Ottoman religious legacy to…
A sharp, historically minded conversation about how "free market" became common sense.
Free Market: The History of an Idea treats economic language as something with a history, not a set of neutral labels. Jacob Saul's central concern is that "free market" has become a familiar phrase whose origins are often left unscrutinized, even as political ideas are…
Great books, taken chapter by chapter, with delight
Book talk with room to wander.
A dervish’s ney summons Shady Safey, Aishikens, a white dove, a rabbit, a thistle, and a cloud into a fairy-tale struggle over a garden in the land of Ney.
Paris Institute for Critical Thinking’s PICT Voices #36 features historian of Palestine Zachary Foster speaking with David Selim Sayers about Gaza, October 7, 2023, and the political logic he says shaped the conflict before that date.
David Selim Sayers and Ian Benson connect Ottoman communal autonomy to modern legal pluralism at the Paris Institute for Critical Thinking.
Christophe Van Houten interviews Jacob Soll about Free Market: The History of an Idea, published by Basic Books, and Soll argues that “free market” and “mercantilism” are mythological labels rather than neutral history.
Stuart Dischell discusses The Lookout Man, his 2023 University of Chicago Press collection, with Bookaholics host Stephanie Papa.
Jan Sigvartsen, an Andrews University Old Testament professor, traces resurrection hope from Daniel to Second Temple writings.
David Kilpatrick, a Mercy College professor of English and sports management, connects the Qatar World Cup to FIFA’s corruption and commercial entrenchment.
An interview with Rabbi Simcha Paul Raphael about death, Jewish perspectives on dying, and his personal journey into death awareness.
An interview with Egyptologist Annik Wutrich about ancient Egyptian approaches to death and the afterlife.
An academic interview exploring Roman perspectives on death and the afterlife, hosted by the Paris Institute for Critical Thinking.
An academic interview exploring the philosophical and historical interest in death, featuring a classicist discussing her lifelong fascination with the topic.
A philosophical and psychological discussion on death, featuring an interview with social psychologist Sheldon Solomon about terror management theory.
An interview with a professor discussing José Saramago's novel 'Blindness' and its relevance during the pandemic.
An introduction to a lecture on Wittgenstein and the history of philosophy at the Paris Institute for Critical Thinking.