Loneliness and You Axel Seemann

This is the final episode of the first series of the podcast. I have a look at the conversations of the past year, try to identify some guiding threads, and create some connections. I also ramble on a fair bit about various philosophical questions. Please stay tuned - we'll be back in the autumn with the second series, in which we'll focus on the lived experience of loneliness.

My guest in this episode is Melba Jensen. Melba is a guide at the Emily Dickinson Museum in Amherst, Massachusetts. She previously taught 19th Century American Literature at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

My guest in this episode is Richard Deming. Richard is the Director of Creative Writing at Yale University. He is a writer, critic, and scholar whose work explores the intersections of philosophy, literature, and visual culture. His recent book, This Exquisite Loneliness: What Loners, Outcasts, and the Misunderstood Can Teach Us About Creativity, is published with Viking.

My guest in this episode is Tamara Kayali Browne. Tamara is  Senior Lecturer in Health Ethics and Professionalism at Deakin University, Australia. She works in bioethics and the philosophy of medicine with a focus on reproductive technology (particularly ethical issues related to non-medical sex selection) and neuroethics (particularly ethical and philosophical issues related to diagnoses of mental illness). Her book, Depression and the Self: Meaning, Control, and Authenticity, is published with Cambridge University Press.

My guest in this episode is Olya Kudina. Olya is Assistant Professor in Ethics and Philosophy of Technology at TU Delft in the Netherlands. She explores moral questions through the lens of hermeneutics, pragmatism, and empirical philosophy and is particularly interested in AI ethics. Her new book, Moral Hermeneutics and Technology: Making Moral Sense through Human-Technology-World Relations, is published with Rowman & Littlefield. Her paper, “Alexa, who am I?”: Voice Assistants and Hermeneutic Lemniscate as the Technologically Mediated Sense‐Making, is in the journal Human Studies.

My guest in this episode is Ulla Schmid. Ulla is a physician and philosopher. One of her interests, both in research and as a social worker and junior assistant in psychiatry, is addiction. Her recent paper, Alcohol and Loneliness: Their Entanglement and Social Constitution, is published in the journal Topoi.