Half Hour of Heterodoxy

Jill DeTemple is my guest today. She’s an associate professor of religious studies at Southern Methodist University. She uses a technique called reflective structured dialogue to enable students to express their perspectives on contentious moral and religious issues.

Lawrence B. Glickman is my guest on this episode. He’s the Stephen and Evalyn Milman Professor in American Studies at Cornell University. We’ll be talking about his latest book, “Free Enterprise: An American History.” It covers what American politicians and the public mean when they talk about free enterprise, how that meaning has changed from the 19th century to the present, and whether the term “free enterprise” has a precise meaning. Nelson Lichtenstein, another historian of ideas, wrote this about Glickman’s new book, “In this sweeping intellectual and cultural history, Lawrence Glickman proves a sure guide to the economically vague yet politically talismanic meaning of the phrase ‘free enterprise.’ He demonstrates that the most enduring features of American business conservatism have long expressed themselves through this maddingly mythic construction.” Lawrence Glickman has also published historical books about the living wage and consumer activism. He teaches a popular course called “Sports and Politi

James Poniewozik is my guest today. He’s the chief television critic for the New York Times. We’ll be talking about his new book “Audience of One: Donald Trump, Television, and the Fracturing of America,” which was listed as one of the 10 best books of the year by Publishers Weekly, one of the 50 notable works of nonfiction in 2019 by The Washington Post, and a notable book of the year by the New York Times Book Review. One critic called it “two books in one” because half the book examines the history of television from the Reagan era to today, and the other half illustrates how Donald Trump assiduously used television to create his persona. As Poniewozik puts it, Trump is “a character that wrote itself, a brand mascot that jumped of the cereal box and entered the world, a simulacrum that replaced the thing it represented.” Audience of One combines both humor and serious analysis to explain how new forms of television programming–reality TV in particular–have changed the world we live in.   A transcript will

Deb Mashek, my guest on this episode, is the executive director of Heterodox Academy. We talk about what Heterodox Academy does and Deb gives a preview of some 2020 events. Here is a transcript of this episode. Related Links: The Staff of Heterodox Academy* The Advisory Council of Heterodox Academy* HxCommunities* Donate to HxA* Glenn Loury on Half Hour of Heterodoxy* Alice Dreger on Half Hour of Heterodoxy* Rick Shweder on Half Hour of Heterodoxy If you enjoyed this show, please rate it on iTunes: Go to the show’s iTunes page and click “View in iTunes”* Click “Ratings and Reviews” which is to the right of “Details”* Next to “Click to Rate” select the stars. See the full list of episodes of Half Hour of Heterodoxy >>

Carol Quillen is my guest on this episode. She’s the president of Davidson College, my alma mater, and she is also a historian by training. She received her PhD in history from Princeton University. In 2018, Princeton awarded her the James Madison Medal, given in recognition of a distinguished career. She has published essays and talked about the usefulness of debate and free expression in academia, and has also commented on the limits of free expression. Related Links: Carol Quillen on Twitter* Carol Quillen Biography * Fostering Democratic Values on Campus, a panel discussion with Carol Quillen, Ron Daniels, Wayne Frederick, and John Donvan* Reframing the Free Speech versus Inclusivity Debate by Carol Quillen, The Davidsonian* Time for a Detox: How the Sugar High of Certainty Impairs Speaking about Speech by Carol Quillen, Forbes* Buckle Up, It’s College by Carol Quillen, Forbes* Talk by Carol Quillen at the Community Building Initiative in Charlotte* Is Ethical Public Service Still Possible?, talk by Will

Phoebe Maltz Bovy (@tweetertation) is my guest today. She’s the author of The Perils of "Privilege": Why Injustice Can’t be Solved by Accusing Others of Advantage, published in 2017. Her essays on privilege and politics have appeared in The New Republic, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and other publications. She also co-hosts the heterodox show Feminine Chaos with Kat Rosenfeld, available in streaming video on bloggingheads tv and as a podcast. We’ll be talking about her book and some of her more recent articles on privilege. Here is a transcript of this episode. Related Links: Phoebe Maltz Bovy on Twitter* Perils of Privilege excerpt in The New Republic* Feminine Chaos, a bloggingheads.tv show on heterodox feminism with Phoebe Maltz Bovy and Kat Rosenfeld. (You can also donate to the show on Patreon.)* The last thing on ‘privilege’ you’ll ever need to read by Carlos Lozada, book review in The Washington Post* Sympathy for the White Devil: Phoebe Maltz Bovy’s ‘The Perils of Privilege’ by Jacqui

Ilana Redstone (@irakresh) is my guest. She is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she teaches core sociology courses and a special course called Bigots and Snowflakes: Living in a World Where Everyone Else is Wrong. She is the founder of Diverse Perspectives Consulting, whose mission to improve communication to create a truly inclusive workplace culture. Her research has focused on legal permanent residents in the U.S. She also has written about problems within the discipline of sociology. She has been a faculty fellow at Heterodox Academy since 2017. She currently manages the HXSociology forum, part of the Heterodox Communities (HxCommunities) initiative. It aims to support and promote a sense of community among heterodox scholars within particular fields of study, particular geographic regions, and other specific academic communities. Here is a transcript of this episode. Related Links: The silent crisis in the classroom by Ilana Redstone, Foundatio

Tony McAleer is my guest on this episode. He’s the author of the new book “The Cure for Hate: A Former White Supremacist’s Journey from Violent Extremism to Radical Compassion. He is the co-founder of Life After Hate, a non-profit organization whose mission to help people leave hate groups and to counter hate on social media without censorship. A former organizer for the White Aryan Resistance (WAR), he served as a recruiter for WAR and proprietor of a white-supremacist voice messaging center. In addition to co-directing Life After Hate, Tony works with governments and academic researchers to combat recruitment into hate groups. Earlier this year, he testified before the U.S. Congress’s Civil Rights and Civil Liberties subcommittee on confronting white supremacy and the adequacy of the Federal response. He currently lives in Vancouver, British Columbia. Life After Hate is based in Chicago. Here is a transcript of this episode. If you enjoyed this show, please rate it on iTunes: Go to the show’s iTunes page

Robert Talisse (@roberttalisse) is my guest on this episode. He's the W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University. His central research area is democratic theory. In his latest book Overdoing Democracy: Why We Must Put Politics in Its Place (@OverdoingD), Robert argues that we spoil certain social goods if we spend too much time and effort in the arena of politics and elevate political allegiances above other commitments. If you're in the D.C. area, you can catch a book signing by Robert Talisse at Politics and Prose on Connecticut Ave on November 2nd at 3:30 in the afternoon. If you're in the New York area, you can catch him at Shakespeare and Company on November 7 at 6:30 p.m. Here is a transcript of this episode. If you enjoyed this show, please rate it on iTunes: Go to the show’s iTunes page and click “View in iTunes”* Click “Ratings and Reviews” which is to the right of “Details”* Next to “Click to Rate” select the stars. See the full list of episodes of Half Hour of Heterodoxy >

Sheila Heen is my guest today. This is the second part of a two-part interview with her. The first part is available here. Sheila is the coauthor of Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most (1999), a New York Times Business Bestseller that has continuously been in print. An updated 10th anniversary edition was published in 2010. She’s also the coauthor of Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Arts of Receiving Feedback Well (Even When It’s Off-Base, Unfair, Poorly Delivered and Frankly, You’re Not in the Mood), a New York Times bestseller. She is a lecturer at Harvard Law School and a founder of Triad Consulting Group. Here is a transcript of this episode. If you enjoyed this show, please rate it on iTunes: Go to the show’s iTunes page and click “View in iTunes”* Click “Ratings and Reviews” which is to the right of “Details”* Next to “Click to Rate” select the stars. See the full list of episodes of Half Hour of Heterodoxy >>

Sheila Heen is my guest today. She’s the coauthor of Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most (1999), a New York Times Business Bestseller that has continuously been in print. An updated 10th anniversary edition was published in 2010. She’s also the coauthor of Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well (Even When It’s Off-Base, Unfair, Poorly Delivered and Frankly, You’re Not in the Mood), a New York Times bestseller. She is a lecturer at Harvard Law School and a founder of Triad Consulting Group. We discuss difficult conversations between faculty and students in this episode, the first of two episodes with Sheila Heen. We recorded this using Skype because of technical problems with the application that we normally use. You may notice lower audio quality. Here is a transcript of this episode. Rating the Show If you enjoyed this show, please rate it on iTunes: Go to the show’s iTunes page and click “View in iTunes”* Click “Ratings and Reviews” which is to the rig

Matthew H. Goldberg (@MattGoldberg100) is my guest on this episode. He's a Postdoctoral Associate at the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. He's an expert in social psychological topics related to communication, such as attitudes and persuasion, motivated reasoning, and ideology. We discuss Matt's recent paper A Social Identity Approach to Engaging Christians in the Issue of Climate Change, published this month in Science Communication. We also talk about related work at the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, where Matt works. Matt talked about Katherine Hayhoe, an Evangelical Christian and climate activist, during the episode. Here is a short biographical video on Katherine Hayhoe from NOVA's Secret Life of Scientists and Engineers series. Her YouTube channel is Global Weirding with Katherine Hayhoe. Here is a transcript of this episode. Related Links: Open Science Framework: Persuasive Climate Change Messages to Christian (data from the studies we discussed) Yale Climate Opinion: Visu

Today's episode features Charlie Sykes (@SykesCharlie), a conservative political commentator who hosted a popular talk radio show from 1993 to 2016. He later joined The Weekly Standard magazine and hosted The Daily Standard podcast. In December 2018, after the shuttering of The Weekly Standard, he and William Kristol founded The Bulwark website, hiring many former staff members of the Standard. Charlie currently hosts the daily Bulwark podcast, which features interviews with politicians, professors, and commentators. Books by Charlie Sykes: How the Right Lost Its Mind (2017; updated preface in paperback edition)* Fail U: The False Promise of Higher Education (2016)* Profscam: Professors and the Demise of Higher Education (1988) Here is a transcript of the episode. Rating the Show If you enjoyed this show, please rate it on iTunes: Go to the show’s iTunes page and click “View in iTunes”* Click “Ratings and Reviews” which is to the right of “Details”* Next to “Click to Rate” select the stars. See the full l

This episode was recorded before a live audience at the Decatur Book Festival in Decatur, GA, on September 1, 2019. It features historians Kevin Kruse (@KevinMKruse) and Julian Zelizer (@JulianZelizer) talking about Fault Lines: A History of the United States Since 1974. The end of the episode features audience questions and answers. Here is a transcript of the episode. Rating the Show If you enjoyed this show, please rate it on iTunes: Go to the show’s iTunes page and click “View in iTunes”* Click “Ratings and Reviews” which is to the right of “Details”* Next to “Click to Rate” select the stars. See the full list of episodes of Half Hour of Heterodoxy >>

Lara Schwartz is the director of the Project for Civil Discourse at American University where she’s also a professor in law and government. She’s also the coauthor of How to College: What to Know Before You Go (And When You're There). We talk about the problem of false equivalence (also termed false balance, both-sidesism, and both-siderism) in the classroom, and how college professors can address this problem. Related Links: Project for Civil Discourse on Youtube* Can journalistic “false balance” distort public perception of consensus in expert opinion? by Derek J. Koehler, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied* Balance as Bias: Global Warming and the U.S. Prestige Press by M. T. Boykoff and J. M. Boykoff, Global Environmental Change* Journalistic Balance as Global Warming Bias by Jules Boykoff, Fairness and Accuracy in Resporting* Lara Schwartz on the 2019 Heterodox Academy conference panel, "Successes, Strains and Stories to Inspire." Here is a transcript of the episode. Rating the Show I

Harvard University professor and best-selling author Steven Pinker considers why open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, and constructive disagreement matter beyond the academy. He makes the case that healthy colleges and universities equip citizens, scientists, policymakers, parents, and others with the habits of heart and mind necessary to advance the human condition. The talkback and Q&A host is Nick Gillespie, Editor-at-Large of Reason magazine. A transcript is available on Youtube. Editor's note: This episode is Steven Pinker's keynote talk at the 2019 Heterodox Academy Conference. Rating the Show If you enjoyed this show, please rate it on iTunes: Go to the show’s iTunes page and click “View in iTunes”* Click “Ratings and Reviews” which is to the right of “Details”* Next to “Click to Rate” select the stars. See the full list of episodes of Half Hour of Heterodoxy >>

Joanna Schug (@joannaschug) is a social and cross-cultural psychologist at the College of William and Mary. We discuss how the concept of relational mobility helps us understand why cultures differ from one another, and why people can have difficulty adapting to a new culture. For a long time, we’ve described cultures in terms of individualism or collectivism, but there are limitations to those terms. Joanna explains how we can interpret cultural behavior better if we think about high and low relational-mobility cultures. Related Links: Cowboys vs. Rice Farmers: Mapping the Ecology of Cultural Difference, William & Mary News* How to win (and lose) friendships across cultures: Why relational mobility matters by Robert Thomson and Masaku Yuki, In Mind* Relational Mobility Depends on Where You Live, Asian Scientist* Relational Mobility Explains Between- and Within-Culture Differences in Self-Disclosure to Close Friends by Joanna Schug, Masaki Yuki, & William Maddux, Psychological Science* Relational mob

Cailin O’Connor (@cailinmeister) is a philosopher of science at the University of California-Irvine. We discuss her book The Misinformation Age: How False Beliefs Spread co-authored with James Owen Weatherall. Related Links: Do as I Say, Not as I Do, or, Conformity in Scientific Networks by James Owen Weatherall and Cailin O'Connor* How Science Spreads: Smallpox, Stomach Ulcers, and ‘The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary’: Episode of The Hidden Brain* Ukraine: The Haze of Propaganda by Tim Snyder, New York Review of Books* Endogenous Epistemic Factionalization: A Network Epistemology Approach by James Owen Weatherall & Cailin O’Connor* The Natural Selection of Conservative Science by Cailin O’Connor * How to Beat Science and Influence People: Policy Makers and Propaganda in Epistemic Networks by James Owen Weatherall, Cailin O’Connor, & Justin P. Bruner Here is a transcript of this episode. Rating the Show If you enjoyed this show, please rate it on iTunes: Go to the show’s iTunes page and click “View in

This episode features short interviews with people who attended the 2019 Heterodox Academy conference and one excerpt from a conference symposium. Guests In Order of Appearance: Jon Haidt, social psychologist and business ethics professor * Amna Khalid, historian* Jesse Singal, journalist at New York Magazine* Anya Pechko, entrepreneur and founder of Project Be* Fabio Rojas, sociologist and editor of Contexts* Nicholas Phillips, Heterodox Academy research associate Here is a transcript of the episode. Rating the Show If you enjoyed this show, please rate it on iTunes: Go to the show’s iTunes page and click “View in iTunes”* Click “Ratings and Reviews” which is to the right of “Details”* Next to “Click to Rate” select the stars. See the full list of episodes of Half Hour of Heterodoxy >>

Oliver Burkeman is a British journalist and author based in Brooklyn. We discuss his recent Guardian essay where he argues that excessive engagement with political news is unhealthy for individual wellbeing and for democracy. Related Links How the news took over reality by Oliver Burkeman* The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking (Burkeman)* Video: The Negative Path to Happiness and Success (Burkeman)* Help! How To Be Slightly Happier and Get a Bit More Done (Burkeman)* Why time management is ruining our lives (Burkeman)* Overdoing Democracy: Why We Must Put Politics in Its Place by Robert Talisse Here is atranscript of the episode. Rating the Show If you enjoyed this show, please rate it on iTunes: Go to the show’s iTunes page and click “View in iTunes”* Click “Ratings and Reviews” which is to the right of “Details”* Next to “Click to Rate” select the stars. See the full list of episodes of Half Hour of Heterodoxy >>