Think About It

Ulrich C. Baer
  • 4.9 (57)
  • Books

Think About It engages today's leading thinkers in conversations about powerful ideas and how language can change the world.

  1. 4d ago

    Book Talk 70: Neil Selkirk on Why Photographs?

    When Neil Selkirk first saw one of Arbus’s photographs as a young man at someone’s house in London, it almost sent him screaming into the street. Unsettled and shaken, the encounter instead opened his eyes to the uncanny powers of photography. It turned Selkirk into an important photographer and, ultimately, an indispensable collaborator to some of the greatest photographers of all time, including Richard Avedon, Diane Arbus, and other greats. In our conversation on great photographers and the art of photography, based on Selkirk’s edited book Why Photographs? (Warbler, 2026) we discuss essential dimensions of photography, including riveting detail, spontaneity, credibility, and the gift of chance, and how they were celebrated by early photographers but soon denounced by an establishment that saw photography as a threat to painting.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

  2. Jan 3

    Book Talk 69: American Medium, with Eyal Peretz

    What is “America” not only as a political entity but in our imagination? How can we properly envision America, without repeating clichés that frame America as either reactionary or revolutionary, repressive or liberatory? I spoke with Eyal Peretz about his book American Medium, which looks at Hollywood to re-imagine the concept of "America" through the medium of film. By considering six fundamental American movies: John Ford's Young Mr. Lincoln and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather, Steven Spielberg's West Side Story, and Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation and Marie Antoinette, Peretz explains how these films do more than represent America and envision a new way to ground human life in our secular age. Eyal Peretz is Professor of Comparative Literature at Indiana University and the author of seminal books on Melville, de Palma, Diderot, da Vinci, as well as film, art, and philosophy. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

  3. 10/09/2025

    Free Speech 72: What is Free Speech with Fara Dabhoiwala

    The speech debates have not abated, and it’s clear that invoking the First Amendment, and the importance of free speech for democracy, does not settle these debates but provokes more questions. We have lost our way, it seems, since people on all sides invoke free speech and then try to silence those they disagree with. Historian Fara Dabhoiwala of Princeton University reminds us that free speech has always been contested, and that it became a political and social value only recently. We invited him to discuss his new book What Is Free Speech?: The History of a Dangerous Idea. Dabhoiwala examines how free speech started as a risky and radical concept, and how it evolved through centuries of political battles to become central to democracy only at a certain point in history. As Professor Dabhoiwala explains, speech rights have come and gone long before campus protests, debates over what talk show hosts can say, and whether there ought to be limits to speech that’s defined as dangerous, offensive, or unpatriotic. If we hope to find a way out of our current predicament, we should study this history carefully – with Professor Dahhoiwala as the perfect guide. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

  4. 10/02/2025

    Book Talk 69: Uncanny E.T.A. Hoffmann with Peter Wortsman

    Step into the unsettling world of E.T.A. Hoffmann with translator Peter Wortsman to explore “The Sandman”—a tale that haunted Freud enough to spark his famous psychoanalytic analysis of “The Uncanny,” examining familiar things that unsettle and disturb us for no clear reason. What makes this bizarre story so deeply disturbing, even today? And how does Hoffmann’s genius, in all of his writing, continue to shape the way we think about the unfamiliar, and the blurry line between human and machine? Our guest for this show is New York-born Peter Wortsman, a renowned translator of Kafka, Kleist, Musil and others, playwright, and author, whose travel memoir Ghost Dance in Berlin won the Independent Publishers Book Award. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

  5. 09/11/2025

    Book Talk 68: Ham’s Heaven with Ori Gersht

    Listen to Ori Gersht speak about his novel Ham’s Heaven (Warbler Press, 2025). Inspired by the true story of the first great ape in space, it explores the friendship of an ape and his trainer to examine what we do with animals in the name of progress. Drawing on careful research and echoing the existential questions of Kafka’s “Report to an Academy,” Ham’s Heaven takes us on a journey that is as thrilling as deeply moving—a testament to the bonds that define us, and the progress that so often divides us. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

  6. 07/29/2025

    Book Talk 67 : The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science

    What is reliable knowledge? Listen to philosopher Michael Strevens, author of The Knowledge Machine: How Irrationality Created Modern Science, to understand how science discovers the truth. At the current moment, when expertise is under attack and the idea of truth is contested from all sides, Strevens explains the remarkable success of science’s “irrational” method to settle debates, regardless of philosophical, religious, or aesthetic preferences. Drawing on Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions—our host Uli Baer’s all-time favorite non-fiction book—, Karl Popper, and others, Strevens shows how science became the most effective tool for uncovering the secrets of nature. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

  7. 05/19/2025

    Book Talk 66: Political Hope, with Loren Goldman

    How to find hope in these times? I spoke with political scientist Loren Goldman about the principle of political hope: why we should have hope, how to have hope in dark times, and how political hope differs from naïve optimism, faith in progress, or passive reliance on a hidden logic that will save us in the end. Goldman, who is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania, is the author of The Principle of Political Hope (Oxford University Press, 2023), where he reveals hope to be an indispensable aspect of much continental and American political thought, especially in the works of Immanuel Kant, John Dewey, Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, Ernst Bloch, Richard Rorty, and others. Our conversation on Goldman’s study of hope ends with three concrete lessons to counter hopelessness, cynicism, and despair. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

  8. 04/18/2025

    Book Talk 65 Emily Dickinson, with Sharon Cameron

    We need Emily Dickinson’s startling originality today more than ever. This is why I sat down with Sharon Cameron, one of the greatest commentators on Dickinson’s poetry, to explore some of Dickinson’s poems in an extra-long podcast. “It’s astonishing that after forty years of reading Dickinson, I am still ‘awed beyond my errand’ by how Dickinson’s poems let us experience something viscerally, at the edge of comprehension,” Cameron remarks in this conversation that forgoes clichés and favors critical acumen. By closely considering a few poems, Cameron explains how Dickinson speaks from placeless places and from within experiences outside of language, how her poems create wonder, and how her poems link without merging the mundane, the erotic, and other incommensurate dimensions of life. Sharon Cameron’s book include: Lyric Time: Dickinson and the Limits of Genre; Choosing Not Choosing: Dickinson’s Fascicles; and, most recently, The Likeness of Things Unlike: A Poetics of Incommensurability (Chicago University Press, 2024), on Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Willa Cather, and Wallace Stevens. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

See All (145)

4.9
out of 5
57 Ratings

About

Think About It engages today's leading thinkers in conversations about powerful ideas and how language can change the world.

Information

  • Creator
    Ulrich C. Baer
  • Years Active
    2018 - 2026
  • Episodes
    145
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Ulrich C. Baer
  • Show Website
    Think About It

You Might Also Like